https://phys.org/nanotech-news/nano-physics/ en-us The latest science news on nanophysics, nanotechnology, nanotech and nanoscience. Understanding how ions diffuse in solid materials is essential for technologies including batteries, electronics and chemical catalysts, but it has been hard for a simple reason: the materials are solids. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tracer-exchange-reveals-ions-battery.html Nanophysics Thu, 13 Aug 2026 18:40:03 EDT news705850816 An international research team including Alexander Korsunsky from the Skoltech Engineering Center has, for the first time, directly measured mechanical stresses at the contact between a diamond indenter and a complex nanostructured coating at a resolution of less than 80 nanometers. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-multilayer-nanocoatings-dissipate-energy-nanoscale.html Nanophysics Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:20:03 EDT news705848755 From smartphones to data centers, modern electronics rely on billions of tiny switches that consume electricity every time they turn on or off. As global demand for computing continues to grow, so does the energy required to power it. Scientists are therefore searching for alternatives that can perform the same tasks while using far less energy. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-magnetic-path-power.html Nanophysics Thu, 13 Aug 2026 10:00:04 EDT news705831481 Rice University researchers have shown that tiny wrinkles in graphene can change the material's electrical properties, providing evidence for flexoelectricity, a phenomenon in which a material generates an electric charge when it bends unevenly. The findings are published in Advanced Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-graphene-nanowrinkles-reshape-electricity-future.html Nanophysics Wed, 12 Aug 2026 18:10:01 EDT news705773341 What if scientists could get a taste of discovery as soon as their experiment finishes? Thanks to a new machine learning tool called DONUT, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are transforming how experiments are run at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-real-ray-analysis-donut-materials.html Nanophysics Tue, 11 Aug 2026 19:20:01 EDT news705682545 Recent technological advances have enabled the development of increasingly sophisticated, sharper displays for electronic devices. Many modern displays use light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, tiny semiconductor-based components that emit light when an electrical current passes through them. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-technique-quantum-dots-tiny-pixels.html Nanophysics Sun, 09 Aug 2026 15:20:01 EDT news705314764 Researchers created an electrically tunable quantum nanoscale corral that traps charged excitons and enables precise electrical control of tiny light sources, including their brightness, color and quantum states, the team, led by Boston College physicists, reports today in Nature Nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-electrostatic-nanocorral-excitons-quantum.html Nanophysics Wed, 05 Aug 2026 17:40:03 EDT news705160321 Researchers at the University of Bayreuth, together with colleagues from Freie Universität Berlin and the Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, have developed a synthetic fiber system inspired by the cellular cytoskeleton that protects itself through controlled bundling. The findings open up new avenues for smart, switchable materials whose properties can be deliberately altered in response to a specific stimulus. The research is published in the journal Advanced Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-cell-synthetic-fibers-reveal-reversible.html Nanophysics Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:40:01 EDT news705148801 Researchers at the 4th Physics Institute of the University of Stuttgart and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Milan have demonstrated a new mechanism for directing light in a naturally hyperbolic van der Waals material without conventional nanofabricated waveguides. The discovery opens new possibilities for integrated photonics, on-chip optical communication and future quantum technologies. The paper is published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nano-optics-mechanism-channeling-natural.html Nanophysics Tue, 04 Aug 2026 14:40:03 EDT news705065941 Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have demonstrated a new quantum-dot mechanism that could significantly expand the reach of light-driven chemistry. By introducing magnetic manganese dopants into semiconductor quantum dots, the team created an ultrafast spin-exchange pathway that captures hot-electron energy before it is lost as heat and uses it to drive chemical reduction. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-magnetic-dopants-quantum-dots-chemical.html Nanophysics Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:40:03 EDT news705054241 Researchers at the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering have developed a new approach to nanoscale 3D printing that improves both speed and fidelity, overcoming a challenge that has limited the technology's broader use in manufacturing. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-pixel-patterns-harness-diffraction-faster.html Nanophysics Mon, 03 Aug 2026 16:20:02 EDT news704985845 Researchers in the lab of Sam Peng, the Pfizer Inc.–Gerald Laubach Career Development Assistant Professor of Chemistry at MIT and a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, have developed a super-resolution imaging technology. It allows scientists to visualize molecular structures with angstrom-level localization precision—three orders of magnitude beyond the nanometer-scale limits of standard fluorescent dyes—while simplifying the imaging process. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-microscopy-method-angstrom-scale-localization.html Nanophysics Sun, 02 Aug 2026 14:00:05 EDT news704556380 What if glowing molecules could synchronize, much like fireflies flashing in unison? Researchers have discovered that molecules confined within tiny gold nanostructures can behave collectively, coordinating their interactions even under conditions where this was previously thought impossible. The finding challenges long standing assumptions about how optical coherence forms and opens new possibilities for highly sensitive sensors, molecular photonics, and future quantum technologies capable of operating at room temperature. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-molecules-cooperate-room-temperature.html Nanophysics Thu, 30 Jul 2026 18:10:02 EDT news704649001 As materials become thinner—now reaching the thickness of single atoms—it has become increasingly difficult to create sufficiently large sheets and transfer them without cracking them into tiny flakes. Recent work by a broad Amsterdam-based team of scientists, published in the journal ACS Nano, presents a new technique that solves this problem using an unexpected material found in any home kitchen. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-kitchen-centimeter-scale-ultrathin-electronics.html Nanophysics Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:40:06 EDT news704544001 Spin waves (SWs), or magnons, are collective excitations of magnetization in magnetic materials arising from electron spins. They have attracted considerable attention as information carriers and have shown promise in logic circuits, memory devices and physical neural networks. Among the emerging platforms for manipulating SWs are magnonic crystals (MCs), engineered magnetic materials with periodic structures designed to control magnon propagation. These periodic structures give rise to magnonic band structures and mode profiles, much like semiconductor crystals control electron transport. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-inverse-2d-magnonic-crystals-widen.html Nanophysics Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:00:07 EDT news704470382 A new quantum sensing technique could enable measurements of single protein structures and other important molecules, with potential applications in drug discovery and structural biology. A research team from the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) at the University of Waterloo developed a new method that uses a single molecule as a quantum sensor. Quantum sensors use unique properties of quantum mechanics to make ultra-precise measurements that traditional sensors cannot achieve. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-molecule-quantum-sensor-imaging-proteins.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:00:06 EDT news704463661 Many of today's electronic devices—from the semiconductors in your cell phone to the photovoltaic cells in your solar panels—are built on thin-film substrates. The thin film is an electrically conductive material, while the substrate is an inert material. Or is it? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-thin-substrates-longer-inert-path.html Nanophysics Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:00:05 EDT news704382661 Photographs can reveal things that are otherwise impossible for the naked eye to see, be they distant galaxies or microscopic cells. Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University have developed a practical and versatile imaging technique that makes another usually invisible phenomenon visible: surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), light waves that travel along metal surfaces. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-quantum-dots-reveal-hidden-metal.html Nanophysics Fri, 24 Jul 2026 14:40:07 EDT news704113602 Photonic microchips can process data at extremely high speeds and are embedded in a wide variety of today's technologies. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Harvard University have now succeeded in developing three functional components for such chips that are up to 500 times smaller than conventional designs. The researchers used inverse design, a computer algorithm, to achieve this. The results are published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-algorithms-foundry-ready-photonic-circuits.html Nanophysics Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:40:08 EDT news704113562 Researchers at the University of Twente have developed an optical method that follows the shape changes of a single protein in liquid without attaching anything to it. It reads the protein's structure from its own molecular vibrations, free from the labels or tags that other techniques rely on. The method could help researchers study how proteins respond to drugs, toxins and other biomolecules. The paper is published in the journal ACS Nano. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-optical-method-proteins-shift.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 22 Jul 2026 15:20:01 EDT news703943222 Researchers from Skoltech, in collaboration with the Harbin Institute of Technology and Jiangsu University (China), have published a study presenting the first empirical model to explain and predict the sensing behavior of hierarchical tri-phase carbon nanotube systems across a wide temperature range (from -170°C (-274°F) to 90°C (194°F)). The study has been published in the Carbon journal. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-carbon-nanotube-reveals-smart-sensors.html Nanophysics Mon, 20 Jul 2026 17:20:05 EDT news703780670 University of Arizona researchers have demonstrated a promising new application for graphene nanoribbons, a nanoscale semiconductor material with the potential to withstand extreme environments. The team's findings could help clear a key hurdle to bringing fusion energy to the electric grid. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-graphene-nanoribbons-survive-gamma-revealing.html Nanophysics Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:23:15 EDT news703437770 Some researchers are leaning into biology for inspiration in computing. In particular, neuromorphic computing offers a brain-inspired approach to hardware that replaces traditional binary processing with systems that function more like neurons and synapses. Now, a new study, published in Nature Communications, describes an innovative design for a fluidic memristor that uses its own self-heating mechanism to induce a history-dependent memory effect. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-brain-nanopore-device-current-memory.html Nanophysics Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:40:03 EDT news703417766 Many of the advanced electronic components surrounding us in everyday life rely on polar materials to function. Polar materials have an uneven distribution of electric charge. This gives them a positive and a negative side even in the absence of an external electric field. The most important among these are ferroelectric materials, in which the direction of polarization can be reversed by applying an electric field. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-hybrid-material-antiferroelectricity-coexist-switchable.html Nanophysics Thu, 16 Jul 2026 13:20:01 EDT news703410647 Researchers have shown it is possible to expand the field of twistronics—literally. They have demonstrated a technique that allows them to fabricate oxide twistronic materials at much larger scales while also controlling the twist angles between materials that dictate their structural and electronic properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-method-scales-oxide-materials-future.html Nanophysics Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:10:01 EDT news703339019 Driving an electric current through a molecule can create a magnetic field. Yet in practice, such fields are often too weak to be detected experimentally. Through theoretical modeling, researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) show how quantum effects can turn single molecules into effective magnets—including one shaped like a microscopic soccer ball, just in time for the FIFA World Cup final. The findings are published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-quantum-currents-nano-soccer-ball.html Nanophysics Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:20:10 EDT news703326458 As computer chips become more powerful and compact, the materials that protect them must perform better than ever. In advanced chip packaging, liquid epoxy is widely used because it can flow into tiny spaces before curing into a solid protective layer. To be effective, the material must be easy to process in its liquid state while becoming strong, stable and reliable after curing. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-highly-liquid-epoxy-smaller-reliable.html Nanophysics Tue, 14 Jul 2026 08:40:01 EDT news703232968 Materials with magnetic nanostructures have a wide range of potential applications. One area is so-called spintronics, with devices that encode information in magnetic domains. These magnetic bits can be written, read and erased in a more energy-efficient way than bits in current semiconductor devices. Spin textures and magnetic domains in such materials can be investigated using nanoscale magnetic imaging techniques. For example, photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM), coupled with a magnetically sensitive detection mechanism. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tiny-magnetic-image-spintronic-materials.html Nanophysics Sun, 12 Jul 2026 17:00:03 EDT news702563676 A new study led by MIT researchers could drive the development of more energy-efficient digital displays—such as flat-screen TVs, augmented and virtual reality headsets, smartphone screens, medical imaging devices and even large-area ambient lighting surfaces—that also generate richer, brighter colors. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-simple-solution-lifespan-quantum-dots.html Nanophysics Fri, 10 Jul 2026 14:00:06 EDT news702888058 Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have developed gallium-doped zinc oxide (GZO) nanosheets that may enhance camera resolution in compact devices, including smartphones and medical endoscopes. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-transparent-nanosheets-cameras-high-resolution.html Nanophysics Thu, 09 Jul 2026 08:40:01 EDT news702802141