Optical nanomotors: Tiny 'motors' are driven by light

Science fiction is full of fanciful devices that allow light to interact forcefully with matter, from light sabers to photon-drive rockets. In recent years, science has begun to catch up; some results hint at interesting ...

Research Highlights Potential for Improved Solar Cells

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Los Alamos researchers led by Victor Klimov has shown that carrier multiplication—when a photon creates multiple electrons—is a real phenomenon in tiny semiconductor crystals and not a false ...

New microscope chemically identifies micron-sized particles

Researchers have developed a microscope that can chemically identify individual micron-sized particles. The new approach could one day be used in airports or other high-security venues as a highly sensitive and low-cost way ...

It takes more than peer pressure to make large microgels fit in

When an assembly of microgel particles includes one particle that's significantly larger than the rest, that oversized particle spontaneously shrinks to match the size of its smaller neighbors. This self-healing nature of ...

How shaping light can change particle behavior

Light can take many different forms. Even in our day-to-day life, sunlight is vastly different from fluorescent light. In physics, when studying interactions between light and tiny particles, the shape of the light can make ...

Superfilter nanomask protects from invisible killers

The novel mask, developed by Professor Wallace Leung of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is made out of multiple layers of different types of nanofibres, which filter nanosized particles.