Devices depend highly on novel materials with tailored function. A comprehensive spectroscopic analysis toolkit will shed light on the properties of a variety of materials across a broad energy range, streamlining the effort. Nanomaterials are increasingly important to new devices and, thanks to rapid advances in microscopy and spectroscopy, characterising electronic, magnetic and crystallographic structure on the nanoscale is now possible.

For the first time ever, using mass spectrometry, researchers have successfully read several bytes of data recorded on a molecular scale using synthetic polymers. Their work, conducted under the aegis of the Institut Charles Sadron (CNRS) in Strasbourg and the Institute of Radical Chemistry (CNRS / Aix-Marseille University), sets a new benchmark for the amount of data - stored as a sequence of molecular units (monomers) - that...

Nanocars will compete for the first time ever during an international molecule-car race on April 28-29, 2017 in Toulouse (south-western France). The vehicles, which consist of a few hundred atoms, will be powered by minute electrical pulses during the 36 hours of the race, in which they must navigate a racecourse made of gold atoms, and measuring a maximum of a 100 nanometers in length.

  Single-electron experiments with exciting results for the field of nanoelectronics and quantum computing have been carried out by EU-funded scientists. Quantum computers are based on the exploitation of qubits, the quantum analogue of the classic bit. 

In the race towards miniaturisation, a French-US team-mostly involving researchers from the CNRS, Université de Lille, Université de Nantes and Argonne National Laboratory (US) as part of the Research Network on Electrochemical Energy Storage (RS2E)1-has succeeded in improving the energy density of a rechargeable battery without increasing its size (limited to a few square millimeters in mobile sensors).

Nowadays, characterisation of biological processes necessitates investigation at the single molecule level, and hence sensitive imaging techniques. To achieve this, a European team used nanoparticles as imaging probes for receptors in the brain. In the nervous system, neurons communicate with each other or with other cell types through specialised structures known as synapses.

Researchers at CNRS, INSERM, Aix-Marseille University and AP-HM have just created a virtual brain that can reconstitute the brain of a person affected by epilepsy for the first time. From this work we understand better how the disease works and can also better prepare for surgery. These results are published in Neuroimage. Worldwide, one percent of the population suffers from epilepsy.

Researchers at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS and the University of Lorraine have recently developed a design for a coiled-up acoustic metasurface which can achieve total acoustic absorption in very low-frequency ranges.

Developing humanoid robotic technology to perform difficult tasks in aircraft manufacturing facilities is the goal of a four-year joint research project, which is being conducted by the Joint Robotics Laboratory (CNRS/AIST)1 and Airbus Group. It will officially be launched on 12th February 2016 at the French Embassy in Tokyo2.