Nanotechnology

Building the Materials for Next-Gen Tech

February 13, 2023

Felix Fisher in his lab

Felix Fisher, Associate Professor of Chemistry, in his lab where he applies his organic chemistry background to build quantum materials. (Photo by Elena Zhukova)

Imagine a strand of hair, how tiny and fragile it is. Now try to imagine something ten thousand times smaller, which carries electricity and data in the form of...

How do nanoparticles grow? Atomic-scale movie upends 100-year-old theory

July 28, 2022

Video of nanoparticles in movement

New video footage captured by Berkeley Lab scientists reveals for the first time that nanoparticle growth is directed not by difference in size, but by defects. (Credit: Haimei Zheng/Berkeley Lab....

Markita Landry: 2022 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science

February 8, 2022

Follow the path of Markita Landry to becoming a scientist at UC Berkeley. (Video produced by the Vilcek Foundation)

Markita del Carpio Landry was born in Quebec, Canada, to a Bolivian mother and French Canadian father. She grew up a dual citizen of Bolivia and Canada, and when she was 14, her family immigrated to the United States. The challenge of being thrust into a new school while learning English bolstered del Carpio Landry’s love of science and mathematics; she...

An electronic crystal turned flat

February 18, 2022

Artist rendering of a layered charge-density-wave material

Artist rendering of a layered charge-density-wave material. Blue spheres represent lattice ions while sinusoidal curves represent waves of electron density. In this case, the charge density wave possesses long-range order both within a layer and between layers. (Illustration by Alfred Zong)...

With a little help, new optical material assembles itself

February 4, 2022

Nanocircles

Using 3D STEM (scanning transmission electron microscope) tomography at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, Ting Xu and her team mapped out the precise placement of nanoparticles in a self-assembling material. (Courtesy of ACS Nano)

A research team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has demonstrated tiny concentric nanocircles that self...

Technique tunes into graphene nanoribbons’ electronic potential

January 3, 2022

Photo of nanoribbons

Photo: Scanning tunneling microscopy image of a zigzag graphene nanoribbon. (Credit: Felix Fischer/Berkeley Lab)

Ever since graphene – a thin carbon sheet just one-atom thick – was discovered more than 15 years ago, the wonder material became a workhorse in materials science research. From this body of work, other researchers...

This crystal impurity is sheer perfection

June 29, 2021

STEM tomography image of a 3D-grown 100-200-nanometer crystalline disc

Scientists at Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley design 3D-grown material that could speed up production of new technologies for smart buildings and robotics. STEM tomography image of a 3D-grown 100-200-nanometer crystalline disc. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)

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Scientists uncover a process that stands in the way of making quantum dots brighter

March 26, 2021

Atomic scale quantum dot arrays

Atomic scale quantum dot arrays. Illustration courtesy of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Bright semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots give QLED TV screens their vibrant colors. But attempts to increase the intensity of that light generate heat instead, reducing the dots’ light-producing efficiency.

A new...

2021 Priestley Medalist A. Paul Alivisatos helped introduce the world to the nanocrystal

April 14, 2021

Paul Alivisatos

2021 Priestley Medalist A. Paul Alivisatos helped introduce the world to the nanocrystal. Photo Gabriela Hasbun for C&EN.

Some scientists make discoveries that trigger a tidal wave of research. Some inspire so many others to join their scientific endeavor that a new field of research is born....

Metal wires of carbon complete toolbox for carbon-based computers

September 24, 2020

Illustration of graphene nanoribbon

Scanning tunneling microscope image of wide-band metallic graphene nanoribbon (GNR). Each cluster of protrusions corresponds to a singly-occupied electron orbital. The formation of a pentagonal ring near each cluster leads to a more than tenfold increase in the conductivity of metallic GNRs. The GNR backbone has a width of 1.6...