Scaling Friction Down to the Nano/Micro Realm

(Phys.org)—If you ease up on a pencil, does it slide more easily? Sure. But maybe not if the tip is sharpened down to nanoscale dimensions. A team of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) ...

(Phys.org) -- National Institute of Standards and Technology researchers have observed for the first time the Hall effect in a gas of ultracold atoms. The Hall effect is an important interaction of magnetic ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology and the NIST Material Measurement Laboratory have demonstrated that a simpler technique for calibrating lateral sensitivity ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Similar to the way pavement, softened by a hot sun, will slow down a car, graphene—a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with wondrous properties—slows down an object sliding across its ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- By measuring the motion of a vibrating, porous membrane separating water and air, researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, the NIST Physical Measurement Laboratory, the University ...

Scientists know how gravity works at big distances -- the inter-planetary or inter-stellar range -- but does it work the same way at the inter-atomic range?

One of the basic principles of nanotechnology is that when you make things extremely small—one nanometer is about five atoms wide, 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair—they are going ...

Since the heart is such a delicate and critical organ, clinicians usually opt not to intervene with the dead cells that remain after a heart attack or cardiac disease. "But we think that all heart attacks deserve some kind ...

Nearly everyone is familiar with the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), otherwise known as Teflon, the brand name used by the chemical company DuPont. Famous for being "non-sticky" and water repellent, PTFE is a dry lubricant ...

(Phys.org) —Graphene has dazzled scientists, ever since its discovery more than a decade ago, with its unequalled electronic properties, its strength and its light weight. But one long-sought goal has proved ...

Frustration led to revelation when Rice University scientists determined how graphene might be made useful for high-capacity batteries.

(Phys.org) —In the wake of the sobering news that atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at its highest level in at least three million years, an important advance in the race to develop carbon-neutral renewable ...