Tech Briefs Magazine - September 2021 - PIT-23

tion. At different stages the nanoparticles may resemble
spheres, worms or jellyfish - each of which confers different
properties upon the nanomaterial. By understanding what is
happening during self-assembly, researchers can begin to develop
methods to induce specific shapes and tune their effects.
These intricate and well-defined nanoparticles evolve over
time, forming and then morphing as they grow. According to
the researchers, " What's incredible is that we're able to see
both how and when these transitions occur in real time. "
Professor Nathan Gianneschi believes that insights gained
from this technique will lead to unprecedented possibilities for
the development and characterization of self-organizing soft
matter materials - and scientific disciplines beyond chemistry.
" We think this can become a tool that's useful in structural
biology and materials science too, " said Gianneschi. " By integrating
this with machine learning algorithms to analyze the
images, and continuing to refine and improve the resolution,
we're going to have a technique that can advance our understanding
of polymerization at the nanoscale and guide the
design of nanomaterials that can potentially transform medicine
and the environment. "
For more information, contact Lila Reynolds at lila.reynolds@
northwestern.edu.
Engineering the Flow of Light
University of Southern California, Viterbi School of
Engineering (Los Angeles, CA)
he novel structure shown in the illustration was designed to
do one thing: change the shape of light as it is transported.
In a recent paper, Professor Mercedeh Khajavikhan and her
team showed how this can be done by using a new theoretical
model that could have profound implications for many aspects
of our lives.
T
Light can be generated by lasers for imaging and sensing,
run through fiber optic cables for advanced communications,
and built into chips to increase computing capabilities to a
level earlier generations couldn't have dreamed of. Although
each of these advances may have ended with a new device built
by a mechanical, astronautical, biomedical, or computer engineer,
they got their start in photonics.
Light particles tend to move as waves, and photonics is the
science of harnessing those waves. From cutting-edge experiments
of quantum communication with entangled photons,
to everyday technologies like smartphone screens, LiDAR,
and fiber internet, photonics has changed our lives more than
most people realize. And even though the field has been
around for over a century, researchers are still pushing into
new frontiers.
One of these frontiers is called topological photonics. It
combines traditional photonics with topological physics - a
field pioneered in part by Nobel Prize winner and former USC
Professor Duncan Haldane. Topological physics - the mathematical
study of shapes and their arrangement in space - has
been used to explain many interesting properties in electronics
and has led to the development of several new materials
and devices. Now, by combining topological physics and photonics,
researchers can engineer even more creative and neverbefore-seen
light structures.
Photonics & Imaging Technology, September 2021
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Tech Briefs Magazine - September 2021

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