• Spotlight Detail

Better Fuel Cells and Microchips

For 5,000 years or so, the only way to shape metal has been to "heat and beat." Even in modern nanotechnology, working with metals involves carving with electron beams or etching with acid.

Now, Cornell researchers have developed a method to self-assemble metals into complex nanostructures. Applications include making more efficient and cheaper catalysts for fuel cells and industrial processes and creating microstructured surfaces to make new types of conductors that would carry more information across microchips than conventional wires do. more

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Two LASSP Faculty inducted as Foreign Members of Russian Academy of Sciences

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Better Fuel Cells and Microchips

Electron spin in carbon nanotubes

For Future Superconductors, a Little Bit of Lithium May Do Hydrogen a Lot of Good

Spotlight

Michael Hall, a graduate student in LASSP's Single Molecule Biophysics Lab, can actually "unzip" the two strands of a DNA molecule using a procedure called optical trapping. To do this, he focuses a laser on a micron-sized polystyrene bead. Light going through the bead changes direction, forcing the bead in the opposite direction. The result is that the bead remains in the center of the beam of light, trapped in the optical trap. Michael can attach these beads to tiny ...
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