Mix of methods makes nanomaterials safer

22-Dec-2025 - The safe use of nanomaterials and their optimal performance depends largely on their surfaces. However, these have been difficult to characterize reliably up to now. Two new studies by the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) now show that only a targeted combination of ...

Researchers develop ultrasmall, light-sensitive nanoparticles that could serve as contrast agents

24-Sep-2025 - A novel class of light-sensitive nanoparticles may one day enable new approaches to medical imaging. They were developed by a research team at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). The particles absorb laser light and convert them into heat thereby changing their internal structure, ...

Two young researchers on their way to becoming entrepreneurs

Start-ups for environmentally friendly batteries and nanoparticles for cancer therapy in planning

27-Mar-2023 - Two young Empa scientists each receive an Empa Entrepreneur Fellowship to develop innovative products based on their research. Abdessalem Aribia is developing environmentally friendly and safe batteries, while Subas Scheibler is working on nanoparticles for cancer therapy. The Empa Entrepreneur ...

With light into the nanoworld: How optical microscopes allow detailed investigations of nanoparticles

The goal: the development of novel nanoparticles for biomedical applications.

21-Dec-2022 - It sounds like trying to scan a vinyl record with a hammer: Light is actually too "coarse" to image small particles on the nanometer scale. However, in their project "Supercol"- funded by the European Union - scientists want to achieve just that: The investigation of nanoparticles with light. To ...

Graphene dust not harmful, study finds

Analysis of health risks associated with graphene-containing particles

17-Jun-2022 - Graphene-based particles released from polymer composites after abrasion induce negligible health effects. Under the leadership of Empa, an international research team of the Graphene Flagship project conducted a study on the health risks of graphene-containing nanoparticles and recently ...

A new method for exploring the nano-world

A large step forward in the characterization of nanoparticles: One possible application of this technique may be to identify illnesses

11-May-2022 - Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin (MPZPM) in Erlangen present a large step forward in the characterization of nanoparticles. They used a special microscopy method based on interfereometry to outperform existing ...

Acoustic propulsion of nanomachines depends on their orientation

Particles can be used for biomedical applications

15-Mar-2022 - For the first time, physicists from University of Münster have simulated the propulsion of freely orientable nanoparticles by travelling ultrasound waves. They have found answers to central questions which had previously stood in the way of acoustic propulsion of nanoparticles. Microscopically ...

Researchers turned transparent calcite into artificial gold

Breakthrough in metamaterials: New material can serve as a platform for innovative cancer treatments

15-Jun-2021 - For the first time in the world, researchers at Tel Aviv University developed an innovative nanotechnology that transforms a transparent calcite nanoparticle into a sparkling gold-like particle. In other words, they turned the transparent particle into a particle that is visible despite its very ...

On the line: Watching nanoparticles get in shape

New method could advance next-generation applications in medicine, cosmetics, and petroleum recovery

26-Feb-2021 - Liquid structures - liquid droplets that maintain a specific shape - are useful for a variety of applications, from food processing to cosmetics, medicine, and even petroleum extraction, but researchers have yet to tap into these exciting new materials' full potential because not much is known ...

Researchers produce special nanoparticles and reveal their inner structure for the first time

New single-chain nanoparticles could be used in medicine or as nanoreactors in which chemical reactions take place

12-Feb-2021 - Tiny nanoparticles can be furnished with dyes and could be used for new imaging techniques, as chemists and physicists at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) show in a recent study. The researchers have also been the first to fully determine the particles' internal structure. Their ...