Tag Archives: electron microscope

How Butterfly Wings Can Inspire New High-Tech Surfaces

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A South American butterfly flapped its wings, and caused a flurry of nanotechnology research to happen in Ohio.

Researchers here have taken a new look at butterfly wings and rice leaves, and learned things about their microscopic texture that could improve a variety of products.

For example, the researchers were able to clean up to 85 percent of dust off a coated plastic surface that mimicked the texture of a butterfly wing, compared to only 70 percent off a flat surface. (more…)

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First Atomic-Scale Real-Time Movies of Platinum Nanocrystal Growth in Liquids

Berkeley Scientists Create Graphene Liquid Cells for Electron Microscopy Studies of Nanocrystal Formation

They won’t be coming soon to a multiplex near you, but movies showing the growth of platinum nanocrystals at the atomic-scale in real-time have blockbuster potential. A team of scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC) Berkeley has developed a technique for encapsulating liquids of nanocrystals between layers of graphene so that chemical reactions in the liquids can be imaged with an electron microscope. With this technique, movies can be made that provide unprecedented direct observations of physical, chemical and biological phenomena that take place in liquids on the nanometer scale. (more…)

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