Illuminating the future of silicon photonics: optical coupling of carbon nanotubes to microrings

Advances in carbon nanotube material quality and processing techniques have led to an increased interest in nanotube photonics. In particular, emission in the telecommunication wavelengths makes nanotubes compatible with silicon photonics. Noury et al (2014 Nanotechnology 25 [http://ift.tt/PGV9lw] 215201 ) have reported on carbon nanotube photoluminescence coupled to silicon microring resonators, underscoring the advantage of combining carbon nanotube emitters with silicon photonics. Their results open up the possibility of using nanotubes in other waveguide-based devices, taking advantage of well-established technologies.

Y K Kato

Click for full article

Post-growth purification of Co nanostructures prepared by focused electron beam induced deposition

In the majority of cases nanostructures prepared by focused electron beam induced deposition (FEBID) employing an organometallic precursor contain predominantly carbon-based ligand dissociation products. This is unfortunate with regard to using this high-resolution direct-write approach for the preparation of nanostructures for various fields, such as mesoscopic physics, micromagnetism, electronic correlations, spin-dependent transport and numerous applications. Here we present an in situ cleaning approach to obtain pure Co-FEBID nanostructures. The purification procedure lies in the exposure of heated samples to a H 2 atmosphere in conjunction with the irradiation by low-energy electrons. The key finding is that the combination of annealing at 300 °C, H 2 exposure and electron irradiation leads to compact, carbon- and oxygen free Co layers down to a thickness of about 20 nm starting from as-deposited Co-FEBID structures. In addition to this, in tempera...

E Begun, O V Dobrovolskiy, M Kompaniiets, R Sachser, Ch Gspan, H Plank and M Huth

Click for full article

High-performance supercapacitors using graphene/polyaniline composites deposited on kitchen sponge

We in this study used a commercial grade kitchen sponge as the scaffold where both graphene platelets (GnPs) and polyaniline (PANi) nanorods were deposited. The high electrical conductivity of GnPs (1460 S cm −1 ) enhances the pseudo-capacitive performance of PANi grown vertically on the GnPs basal planes; the interconnected pores of the sponge provide sufficient inner surface between the GnPs/PANi composite and the electrolyte, which thus facilitates ion diffusion during charge and discharge processes. When the composite electrode was used to build a supercapacitor with two-electrode configuration, it exhibited a specific capacitance of 965.3 F g −1 at a scan rate of 10 mV s −1 in 1.0 M H 2 SO 4 solution. In addition, the composite Nyquist plot showed no semicircle at high frequency corresponding to a low equivalent series resistance of 0.35 Ω . At 100 mV s −1 , the supercapacitor demonstrated an energy density of 34...

Mahmoud Moussa, Maher F El-Kady, Hao Wang, Andrew Michimore, Qinqin Zhou, Jian Xu, Peter Majeswki and Jun Ma

Click for full article

Bacillus spores as building blocks for stimuli-responsive materials and nanogenerators

Nature Nanotechnology 9, 137 (2014). doi:10.1038/nnano.2013.290

Authors: Xi Chen, L. Mahadevan, Adam Driks & Ozgur Sahin

Xi Chen

Click for full article

DNA assembly of nanoparticle superstructures for controlled biological delivery and elimination

Nature Nanotechnology 9, 148 (2014). doi:10.1038/nnano.2013.309

Authors: Leo Y. T. Chou, Kyryl Zagorovsky & Warren C. W. Chan

Leo Y. T. Chou

Click for full article