NanoComputer

An invisible quick response (QR) code has been created by researchers in an attempt to increase security on printed documents and reduce the possibility of counterfeiting, a problem which costs governments and private industries billions of dollars each year. A team from the University of South Dakota and South Dakota School of Mines and Technology believe the new style of QR code could also be used to authenticate virtually any solid object.
The QR code is made of tiny nanoparticles that have been combined with blue and green fluorescence ink, which is invisible until illuminated with laser light. It is generated using computer-aided design (CAD) and printed onto a surface using an aerosol jet printer. The development process can be viewed in this video.

Enjoy the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eqtQq1Ol14

Source: http://www.iop.org/news/12/sep/page_57101.html

Many of the current experimental "invisibility cloaks" are based around the same idea - light coming from behind an object is curved around it and then continues on forward to a viewer. That person is in turn only able to see what's behind the object, and not the object itself. Scientists from Germany's Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have applied that same principle to sound waves, and created what could perhaps be described as a "silence cloak." For the experiments, Dr. Nicolas Stenger, from KIT,  constructed a relatively small, millimeter-thin plate, made of both soft and hard microstructured polymers. Different rings of material within the plate resonated at different frequencies, over a range of 100 Hertz.

When viewed from above, it was observed that sound wave vibrations were guided around a central circular area in the plate, unable to either enter or leave that region. "Contrary to other known noise protection measures, the sound waves are neither absorbed nor reflected," said Stenger's colleague, Prof. Martin Wegener. "It is as if nothing was there."

Source; http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v107/i17/e173901

A Leuven, Belgium-based R&D lab for nanoelectronics has come up with a process that might bring holographic to everyday life. Scientists at Imec believe, as do other researchers, that holographic images are the answer toward resolving the eye strain and headaches that go along with present-day 3-D viewing. Their work involves creating moving pixels. They are constructing holographic displays by shining lasers on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) platforms that can move up and down like small, reflective pistons. “Holographic visualization promises to offer a natural 3-D experience for multiple viewers, without the undesirable side-effects of current 3D stereoscopic visualization (uncomfortable glasses, strained eyes, fatiguing experience),” the company states.

Click on the image to see the video

In their nanoscale system, they work with chips made by growing a layer of silicon oxide on to silicon wafer. They etch square patches of the silicon oxide. The result is a checkerboard-like pattern where etched-away pixels are nanometers lower than their neighbors. A reflective aluminum coating tops the chip. When laser light shines on the chip, it bounces off of the boundary between adjacent pixels at an angle. Diffracted light interferes constructively and destructively to create a 3-D picture where small mirrored platforms are moving up and down, many times a second, to create a moving projection. The process can also be described as the pixels closer to the light interfering with it one way and those further off, in another. The small distances between them generate the image that the eye sees. Imec hopes to construct the first, proof-of-concept moving structures by mid-2012.” .
Source: http://www2.imec.be/be_en/research/imaging-systems/holographic-displays.html

In early 2011, the The Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structuresab (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) in Switzerland, unveiled the potential of molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂), a relatively abundant, naturally occurring mineral. Its structure and semi-conducting properties make it an ideal material for use in transistors. It can thus compete directly with silicon, the most highly used component in electronics, and on several points it also rivals graphene.

"The main advantage of MoS₂ is that it allows us to reduce the size of transistors, and thus to further miniaturize them," explains Andreas Kis, LANES director, who recently published two articles on the subject in the scientific journal ACS Nano. It has not been possible up to this point to make layers of silicon less than two nanometers thick, because of the risk of initiating a chemical reaction that would oxidize the surface and compromise its electronic properties. Molybdenite, on the other hand, can be worked in layers only three atoms thick, making it possible to build chips that are at least three times smaller. At this scale, the material is still very stable and conduction is easy to control.

Source; http://pubs.acs.org/action/doSearch?action=search&searchText=molybdenum+disulfide+&qsSearchArea
=searchText&type=within&publication=40025957

Drs Ali Aliev, Yuri Gartstein and Ray Baughman, of the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), have succeeded in producing what is technically referred to as the "mirage effect from thermally modulated transparent carbon nanotube sheets," or, as some in the popular press have termed it: an 'invisibility cloak'." The key to this breakthrough are carbon nanotubes—the successful result of another ongoing AFOSR-funded UTD program—that have the ability to disappear when rapidly heated. In reality, this effect is due to photothermal deflection, or a mirage effect, quite similar to what a driver may experience when a highway in the distance becomes so hot that a section of the road may look like a pool of water. This is due to the bending of the light around the hot road surface wherein the driver actually sees the reflected sky in place of the pavement. The carbon nanotubes create much the same effect when heated.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research – ASFOR -, located in Arlington, Virginia, continues to expand the horizon of scientific knowledge through its leadership and management of the Air Force's basic research program. As a vital component of the Air Force Research Laboratory, AFOSR's mission is to discover, shape and champion basic science that profoundly impacts the future Air Force.
Transparent material breakthrough: One of Time magazine's 'Best Inventions of 2011'
Source: http://nanotech.utdallas.edu/personnel/staff/aliev.html