NanoComputer

French company Carmat has won approval to proceed with the first human implantations of its artificial heart in four countries, sending its shares up 25 percent. The approval were given by the four international cardiac surgery centers in Belgium, Poland, Saudi Arabia and Slovenia, where the tests will be carried out, but not in France, where Carmat’s artificial heart is still to gain approval from the drug safety agency, ANSM. Among Carmat’s competitors are privately-held SynCardia Systems and Abiomed Inc., both of the United States.

“The patient selection process and the training of the clinical teams are ongoing in these four countries (…) Implantations could start shortly following the completion of the training,” Carmat said in a press release.

Developed by a team of engineers from Airbus parent company EADS, the Carmat devices – expected to cost 150,000 euros ($193,600) each - mimic heart muscle contractions with two micro pumps, one for each ventricle or heart chamber. The device moves blood to the lungs and into the body. The new design uses cutting-edge biopolymer materials that promise to reduce the formation of dangerous blood clots—a persistent problem with early artificial hearts—and may even spare patients from needing to use nettlesome anticoagulant drugs. Around 5.7 million people in the U.S. have heart failure at any given time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In these patients, the heart’s pumping abilities have grown so weak that it cannot deliver enough oxygen and nutrients to the body.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/

Stanford University scientists have dramatically improved the performance of lithium-ion batteries by creating novel electrodes made of silicon and conducting polymer hydrogel, a spongy substance similar to the material used in soft contact lenses and other household products. The researchers have designed a new technique for producing low-cost, silicon-based batteries with potential applications for a wide range of electrical devices.

An illustration of a new battery electrode made from a composite of hydrogel and silicon nanoparticles (Si NP). Each Si NP is encapsulated in a conductive polymer surface coating and connected to a three-dimensional hydrogel framework“

Developing rechargeable lithium-ion batteries with high energy density and long cycle life is of critical importance to address the ever-increasing energy storage needs for portable electronics, electric vehicles and other technologies,” said study co-author Zhenan Bao, professor of chemical engineering at Stanford.
The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Source: http://news.stanford.edu/

Researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology – Korea – (UNIST) demonstrated high-performance polymer solar cells (PSCs) with power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.92% which is the highest values reported to date for plasmonic PSCs using metal nanoparticles (NPs).

“This is the first report introducing metal NPs between the hole transport layer and active layer for enhancing device performance. The multipositional and solutions-processable properties of our surface plasmon resonance (SPR) materials offer the possibility to use multiple plasmonic effects by introducing various metal nanoparticles into different spatial location for high-performance optoelectronic device via mass production techniques.” said Prof. Jin Young Kim who led the study with Prof.Soojin Park from UNIST. “Our work is meaningful to develop novel metal nanoparticles and almost reach 10% efficiency by using these materials. If we continuously focus on optimizing this work, commercialization of PSCs will be a realization but not dream,” added Prof. Park.

A polymer solar cell is a type of thin film solar cells made with polymers that produce electricity from sunlight by the photovoltaic effect. Most current commercial solar cells are made from a highly purified silicon crystal. The high cost of these silicon solar cells and their complex production process has generated interest in developing alternative photovoltaic technologies.

Source: http://www.unist.ac.kr

How to be more precise and less invasive when treating cancer tumors? A team led by researchers from the UCLA -University of California Los Angeles- Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has developed a degradable nanoscale shell to carry proteins to cancer cells and stunt the growth of tumors without damaging healthy cells. Yi Tang, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and a member of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, reports developing tiny shells composed of a water-soluble polymer that safely deliver a protein complex to the nucleus of cancer cells to induce their death. The shells, which at about 100 nanometers are roughly half the size of the smallest bacterium, degrade harmlessly in non-cancerous cells.

“Delivering a large protein complex such as apoptin to the innermost compartment of tumor cells was a challenge, but the reversible polymer encapsulation strategy was very effective in protecting and escorting the cargo in its functional form,” said Muxun Zhao, lead author of the research and a graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at UCLA.
Source: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/

Scientists in the joint research project “FUNgraphen” are pinning their hopes for new technologies on a particular form of carbon: They have developed new carbon macromolecules and molecular carbon composite materials with special properties. The molecules are derived from graphene, a substance that consists of individual layers of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like pattern. The process previously necessary to make use of this substance was complex and expensive and thus of little value for most plastics applications. A research group at the Freiburg Materials Research Center (FMF) of the University of Freiburg – Germany – led by the chemist Prof. Dr. Rolf Mülhaupt, managing director of the FMF, has now succeeded in combining graphene with polymers, making them fit for plastics applications, and preparing them for material optimization on a kilogram scale.

“The applications range from printed electronics to printed catalysts with a pore design for the production of fine chemicals with simple catalyst recovery,” says Mülhaupt.

Source: http://www.pr.uni-freiburg.de

Sensors and other electronics are usually made of rigid and stiff material such as metals and plastics. They cannot be stretched, twisted or thrown, and should be handled with care. But that is about to change. Researchers from the Institute of Textiles and Clothing at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed a new technology that allows electronics to drape around our body comfortably. Defying our imagination, the researchers have engineered a new fabric that can conduct electricity, paving the way for stretchable electronics.

Principal investigator Prof. Tao explained, “Our new fabric can be stretched like a rubber band and has high sensitivity to strain. We’ve also made another one that can withstand and respond to very high pressure up to 2000kPa. They are water-proof, washable and excellent in resistance to fatigue.”
Source: http://www.polyu.edu.hk

University of Texas  at Arlington (UT Arlington) professor Cheng Luo can envision the day that a flexible cell phone could be folded and placed in a pocket like a billfold or that a laptop computer could be rolled up and stored. Through an active $300,000 National Science Foundation grant, the mechanical and aerospace engineering professor is developing a process called “micropunching lithography.” The process is used to create lightweight, low-cost and more flexible polymer-based devices that have the potential to replace silicon-based materials commonly used in computers and other electronic devices. Luo’s work was recently published in the June 2012 North America edition of International Innovation. 

“Practical applications for these microstructures could be in everything from glucose monitoring and delivery of chemicals in treating water pipes,” Luo said. 

You can rfollow  a  similar research at the Rice University . read the Nanocomputer.com article. http://www.nanocomputer.com/?p=2259

Source. http://www.cisionwire.com/university-of-texas-at-arlington/r/ut-arlington-micropunching-lithography-project-could-yield-pliable-cell-phone–laptops,c9287057

Mass production of nanoscale components for the next generation of computers is now possible.  Researchers in Ireland have developed a new technology using materials called bulk metallic glasses to produce high-precision molds for making tiny plastic components. The components, with detailed microscopically patterned surfaces could be used in the next generation of computer memory devices and microscale testing kits and chemical reactors.

"Our technology is a new process for mass producing high-value polymer components, on the micrometer and nanometer-scale," explains Gilchrist. "This is a process by which high-volume quantities of plastic components can be mass produced with one hundred times more precision, for costs that are at least ten times cheaper than currently possible."

In their article published in the latest edition of Materials Today, Michael Gilchrist, David Browne and colleagues at University College Dublin explain how bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) were discovered about thirty years ago. These materials are a type of metal alloy, but instead of having a regular, crystalline structure like an everyday metal such as iron or an alloy like bronze, the material's atoms are arranged haphazardly. This disordered, or amorphous atomic structure is similar to the amorphous structure of the silicon and oxygen atoms in the glass we use for windows and drinking vessels.

Source: http://www.materialstoday.com/view/25895/making-microscopic-machines-using-metallic-glass/

The development of a new combination of polymers associating sugars with oil-based  macromolecules makes it possible to design ultra-thin films capable of self-organization with a 5-nanometer resolution. This opens up new horizons for increasing the capacity of hard discs and the speed of microprocessors. The result of a French-American collaboration spearheaded by the Centre de Recherches sur les Macromolécules Végétales (CNRS- Paris, France),  this work has led to the filing of two patents. This new class of thin films based on hybrid copolymers could give rise to numerous applications in flexible eclectronics, in areas as diverse as nanolithography, biosensors and photovoltaic cells.

This new generation of material is made from an abundant, renewable and biodegradable resource: sugar. Scientists envisage numerous applications in flexible electronics:  miniaturization of circuit lithography, six-fold increase in information storage capacity (flash memories – USB keys – no longer limited to 1 Tbit of data but 6 Tbit), enhanced performance of photovoltaic cells, biosensors,

Source: http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/2033.htm

The semiconductor industry forecasts a doubling of  the performances of electronic components every 18 months. However, the current printing technology - lithography – has to address the physical constraints of ever-greater miniaturization of silicon chips. CEA-Leti in Paris and the french company Arkema, in association with LCPO (Laboratoire de Chimie des Polymères Organiques)  of Bordeaux – France, have succeeded in going beyond the boundaries of the infinitely small by showing the unique resolution potential of lithography based on nanostructured polymers. These initial results meet the requirements of the  next 4 generations of electronic chips. Building on this success, CEA-Leti and Arkema have  created a development platform dedicated to this technology. 

Researchers from CNRS  and the Université de Strasbourg - France , headed by Nicolas Giuseppone  and Bernard Doudin, have succeeded in making highly conductive plastic fibers that are only several nanometers thick. These nanowires, for which CNRS has filed a patent, "self-assemble” when triggered by a flash of light.

 Inexpensive and easy to handle, unlike carbon nanotubes (3), they combine the advantages of the two materials currently used to conduct electric current: metals and plastic organic polymers (4). In fact, their remarkable electrical properties are similar to those of metals.

Source: http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nchem.1332.html