The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”. Molecular machines are made by one or a few molecules linked together, comprising several hundred atoms. If a molecule can use an energy input to perform a mechanical movement (output) it […]
The Hodgkin-Huxley model for the generation of the nerve action potential is one of the most successful mathematical models of a complex biological process that has ever been formulated. Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley described the model in 1952 to explain the ionic mechanisms underlying the initiation and propagation of action potentials in the squid […]
When we consider the variety of possible wonder applications of plasmonic nanoparticles we usually forget a key aspect: how these laboratory results can be transformed into something really usable in everyday life. For that to occur some not-that-simple problems must be resolved first. For example, plasmonic nanoparticles exhibit excellent light-harvesting properties in the visible spectral […]
One of the most important scientific objectives in recent years is to find solutions to the problem of climate change and environmental pollution. Unfortunately, this issue is not only related to the amount of CO 2 that is released into the atmosphere from fossil fuels. The chemical industry, in the complex processes it carries out […]
Graphene is a diamagnetic material, this is, unable of becoming magnetic. However, a triangular piece of graphene is predicted to be magnetic. This apparent contradiction is a consequence of “magic” shapes in the structure of graphene flakes, which force electrons to “spin” more easily in one direction. Triangulene is a triangular graphene flake, which possesses […]
Condensed matter • Materials • Nanotechnology • Quantum physics • Theoretical physics
When two photons with the same energy interact with a nonlinear material, they “combine” and generate a new photon with twice the energy of the initial photons. More precisely, two photons at the fundamental frequency are absorbed by a plasmonic structure to emit one photon at the second-harmonic frequency. This is called second-harmonic generation. Second-harmonic […]
We all know what glass is, don’t we? We just point to the nearest window and it is that transparent sheet. Humans have been producing glass for at least 6,000 years, way before they knew how to smelt iron. Actually, the chemistry is well known: to produce window glass we just heat a mixture of […]
Renewable energy sources are crucial to react to the continuous increase of energy consumption and pollution by carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. Biofuels, where the energy content is derived from a biological source, are one of the alternatives to oil and natural gas. Still, some biofuels are controversial, like biodiesel, because they imply cultivating certain crops […]
Author: Xabier Irigoien is the scientific director of AZTI In 1906 the First Sea Lord John “Jackie” Fisher launched the HMS Dreadnought, what nowadays would be called a school case of disruptive innovation. Not a new invention, but putting together the most advanced technologies at the time in engines, armour and weapons, the Dreadnought made […]
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), are strips of graphene with ultra-thin width (<50 nm). Graphene ribbons, introduced as a theoretical model by Mitsutaka Fujita and coauthors to examine the edge and nanoscale size effect in graphene, have emerged as a promising material for nanoelectronics, as they combine many of the extraordinary properties of graphene with a high […]