Boron nitride nanotubes are primed to become effective building blocks for next-generation composite and polymer materials based on a new discovery at Rice University — and a previous one. Scientists at known-for-nano Rice have found a way to enhance a unique class of nanotubes using a chemical process pioneered at the university. The Rice lab…
Hematene Joins the Family of 2D Materials
In the wake of its recent discovery of a flat form of gallium, an international team led by scientists from Rice University has created another two-dimensional material that the researchers said could be a game changer for solar fuel generation. Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues extracted 3-atom-thick hematene from common iron ore. The…
To Boost 2-D Materials, Add a Dash of Salt
A dash of salt can simplify the creation of two-dimensional materials, and thanks to Rice University scientists, the reason is becoming clear. Boris Yakobson, a Rice professor of materials science and nanoengineering and of chemistry, was the go-to expert when a group of labs in Singapore, China, Japan and Taiwan used salt to make a…
Quantum Shift Reveals Itself in Coupled Light and Matter
A team led by Rice University scientists used a unique combination of techniques to observe, for the first time, a condensed matter phenomenon about which others have only speculated. The research could aid in the development of quantum computers. The researchers, led by Rice physicist Junichiro Kono and graduate student Xinwei Li, observed and measured…
Solar Cells Get a Boost from Relaxed Crystals
Some materials are like people. Let them relax in the sun for a little while and they perform a lot better. A collaboration led by Rice University and Los Alamos National Laboratory found that to be the case with a perovskite compound touted as an efficient material to collect sunlight and convert it into energy.…
Put Your Best Foot Forward
Patients with diabetes are often at risk of cuts or other injuries to their extremities that they may not be able to feel or easily check. Rice University students have developed a device to help them find early signs of ulceration that, left untreated, could endanger their health and even lead to amputation. Mechanical engineering…
A Little Elbow Grease Turns Graphene Powder into Pellets
It’s easy and economical to make shiny pellets of graphite from functionalized graphene, according to scientists at Rice University. A report in Carbon shows how chemically altered graphene powder can be pressed into a lightweight, semiporous solid that retains many of the strong and conductive qualities of graphite, the form of carbon found in pencils,…
Micro-Robots Perform the Breaststroke
What are those tiny spheres doing as they move across that slide? They’re doing the breaststroke. Rice University scientists have discovered what may be the simplest form of locomotion in the travels of micron-scale particles linked and driven by a magnetic field. In the Rice lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal, researchers…
Scientists Created Platform for Unique Near-Infrared Devices
A novel quantum effect observed in a carbon nanotube film could lead to the development of unique lasers and other optoelectronic devices, according to scientists at Rice University and Tokyo Metropolitan University. The Rice-Tokyo team reported an advance in the ability to manipulate light at the quantum scale by using single-walled carbon nanotubes as plasmonic…
Lens-Free Fluorescent Microscope is Smaller than Credit Card
Lenses are no longer necessary for some microscopes, according to Rice University engineers developing FlatScope, a thin fluorescent microscope whose abilities promise to surpass those of old-school devices. A paper in Science Advances by Rice engineers Ashok Veeraraghavan, Jacob Robinson, Richard Baraniuk, and their labs describes a wide-field microscope thinner than a credit card, small…
Detective Work Leads to Surprise Discovery in “Metal-Free” Catalysts
Detective work by Rice University chemists has defined a deception in graphene catalysts that, until now, has defied description. Graphene has been widely tested as a replacement for expensive platinum in applications like fuel cells, where the material catalyzes the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) essential to turn chemical energy into electrical energy. Because graphene, the…
Graphene, Served Up on Toast
The Rice lab of chemist James Tour, which once turned Girl Scout cookies into graphene, is investigating ways to write graphene patterns onto food and other materials to quickly embed conductive identification tags and sensors into the products themselves. “This is not ink,” Tour says. “This is taking the material itself and converting it into…
Nanoscale Systems’ Secrets Spilled by Fast-Spinning Spheres
Spin a merry-go-round fast enough and the riders fly off in all directions. But the spinning particles in a Rice University lab do just the opposite. Experiments in the Rice lab of chemical engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal show micron-sized spheres coming together under the influence of a rapidly spinning magnetic field. That’s no surprise because…
Weak Hydrogen Bonds Provide a Strong, Tough Infrastructure
The right mix of hydrogen bonds in polymer and cement composites is critical to making strong, tough and ductile infrastructure material, according to Rice University scientists who want to mimic the mechanics of mother-of-pearl and similar natural composites with synthetic materials. Seashells made of mother-of-pearl, aka nacre, get their remarkable properties from overlapping micron-sized, mineralized…
Handmade Nanotube Fibers Speed Things Up
The terms “handmade” and “high tech” are not commonly found in the same sentence, but they both apply to a Rice University method to quickly produce fibers from carbon nanotubes. The method developed by the Rice lab of chemist Matteo Pasquali allows researchers to make short lengths of strong, conductive fibers from small samples of…
Ceramics Become Multifunctional When Aided by White Graphene
A little hBN in ceramics could give them outstanding properties, according to a Rice University scientist. Rouzbeh Shahsavari, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, suggested the incorporation of ultrathin hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) sheets between layers of calcium-silicates would make an interesting bilayer crystal with multifunctional properties. These could be suitable for construction…
Nanoscale Virus Programmed to be Delivery Boy
By chipping away at a viral protein, Rice University scientists have discovered a path toward virus-like, nanoscale devices that may be able to deliver drugs to cells. The protein is one of three that make up the protective shell, called the capsid, of natural adeno-associated viruses (AAV). By making progressively smaller versions of the protein,…
Nano Study Could Lead to Cheaper Fuel Cells
Nitrogen-doped carbon nanotubes or modified graphene nanoribbons may be suitable replacements for platinum for fast oxygen reduction, the key reaction in fuel cells that transform chemical energy into electricity, according to Rice University researchers. The findings are from computer simulations by Rice scientists who set out to see how carbon nanomaterials can be improved for…
When It Comes to Porous Building Blocks, Size Matters
Porous particles of calcium and silicate show potential as building blocks for a host of applications like self-healing materials, bone-tissue engineering, drug delivery, insulation, ceramics and construction materials, according to Rice University engineers who decided to see how well they perform at the nanoscale. Following previous work on self-healing materials using porous building blocks, Rice…
To Infiltrate Brain Disease, Nanotubes Go with the Flow
Rice University researchers have invented a device that uses fast-moving fluids to insert flexible, conductive carbon nanotube fibers into the brain, where they can help record the actions of neurons. The Rice team’s microfluidics-based technique promises to improve therapies that rely on electrodes to sense neuronal signals and trigger actions in patients with epilepsy and…
Carbon Capture: A Little Dab’ll Do Ya
Rice University scientists have found a way to make their asphalt-based sorbents better at capturing carbon dioxide from gas wells: Just add water. The Rice lab of chemist James Tour discovered that treating grains of inexpensive Gilsonite asphalt with water allows the material to adsorb more than two times its weight in the greenhouse gas.…
Purified Nanotubes Give Wheat a Helping Hand
The introduction of purified carbon nanotubes appears to have a beneficial effect on the early growth of wheatgrass, according to Rice University scientists. But in the presence of contaminants, those same nanotubes could do great harm. The Rice lab of chemist Andrew Barron grew wheatgrass in a hydroponic garden to test the potential toxicity of…
A Step Closer to Early Ovarian Cancer Detection
Researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have refined and, for the first time, run in vivo tests of a method that may allow nanotube-based probes to locate specific tumors in the body. Their ability to pinpoint tumors with submillimeter accuracy could eventually improve early detection and treatment of…
The Borophene Stands Alone
An atom-thick film of boron could be the first pure two-dimensional material able to emit visible and near-infrared light by activating its plasmons, according to Rice University scientists. That would make the material known as borophene a candidate for plasmonic and photonic devices like biomolecule sensors, waveguides, nanoscale light harvesters, and nanoantennas. Plasmons are collective…
The Building Material of the Future?
Rice University engineers are using 3-D printers to turn structures that have until now existed primarily in theory into strong, light and durable materials with complex, repeating patterns. The porous structures called schwarzites are designed with computer algorithms, but Rice researchers found they could send data from the programs to printers and make macroscale, polymer…