ADVANCES AT NANOTECHNOLOGY

Nanotechnology Highlights of 2017
Nanotechnology is delighted to announce its Highlights of 2017, available here. Our annual selection represents the breadth and excellence of the work published in the journal. These articles include outstanding new research in Papers, and well-received Topical Reviews and Focus Collection articles. The articles were selected for the high praise received from referees, presentation of outstanding research and popularity with our online readership.

Nanotechnology Young Researcher Award
Dr Stephan Wirths, currently working at IBM Zurich, is the winner of the 2016 Young Researcher Award. The Editorial Board were particularly impressed with Stephan's outstanding contributions to semiconductor nanoscience and nanoelectronics research. To read a full interview with Stephan, and also see the two competition runners-up, please click here.

Accepted manuscripts 
Nanotechnology offers an accepted manuscript service, meaning your research can be downloaded and cited within 24 hours of acceptance. All articles accepted for publication in Nanotechnology will benefit from this service, however, authors are able to opt-out during the submission process should they want to.

https://www.elsevier.com/authors/author-services/research-elements

Nanotech Meets Contact Lenses and Virtual Reality

Nanotech could end up providing a solution to the need for bulky headsets in virtual reality environments, and the answer involves contact lenses.

Bellevue, WA-based Innovega with its iOptik platform embedded a center filter and display lens at the center of a contact lens. The optical elements are smaller than the eye's pupil and therefore do not interfere with vision. A projector can hit those tiny optical elements, which guide images to the retina. But the retina is still getting the overall normal vision provided through the entire pupil, so the brain ends up viewing the projected images and the overall normal field of vision as one.

The company said its iOptik platform provides wearers a "virtual canvas" on which any media can be viewed or application run. The prototypes will feature up to six times the number of pixels and 46 times the screen size of mobile products that rely on designs limited by conventional optics. Those optics are said to deliver games, simulator environments, and movies that are truly "immersive" and "mimic IMAX performance," the company said.

Creating Biodegradable Electrodes

Carnegie Mellon University's Chris Bettinger and Jay Whitacre found that cuttlefish ink provides just the right chemistry and nanostructure to power tiny, ingested electronic devices.

Bettinger, an assistant professor of materials science and biomedical engineering, and Whitacre, an associate professor of materials science and engineering, have been pioneers when it comes to finding battery substances that could be digested, allowing for the powering of medical devices that might also be eaten. They reported some success creating edible power sources using materials found in a daily diet, but still needed to find the optimal pigment-based anodes to include in their edible sodium-ion batteries.

They ended up finding out that naturally occurring melanins derived from cuttlefish ink exhibit higher charge storage capacity compared to other synthetic melanin derivatives when used as anode materials.

But not everything swallowed by a patient needs to be digestible. "You know, anybody who's ever taken a drug in their life probably hasn't adhered exactly to what the prescription says, or what the doctor says, so adherence is a very big issue in the industry," Folk says. "Proteus Digital Health [Redwood City, CA] is a very interesting company. They've got a pill with a power supply, a sensor, and a transmitter. And when you swallow the pill, your stomach acid kicks off the battery and initiates a signal. That indicates that you've actually taken the drug."