An improved method for using graphene-based transistors to detect disease-causing genes has been developed by researchers in India and Japan. Graphene Field-Effect Transistors (GFETs) can detect harmful genes through DNA hybridisation, which occurs when a 'probe DNA' combines, or hybridises, with its complementary 'target DNA.' Electrical conduction changes in the transistor when hybridisation occurs.

A research team at National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) Materials Nanoarchitectonics (MANA) and Tokyo University of Science, Japan, jointly developed a device capable of controlling magnetism at a lower current level than conventional spintronics devices. The device was fabricated by combining a solid electrolyte with a magnetic material, and enabling insertion/removal of ions into/from the magnetic material through application of volt...

Since scientists first reported carbon nanotubes in the early 1990s, these tiny cylinders have been part of the quest to reduce the size of devices and components. Carbon nanotubes, or CNTs, are 100 times stronger than steel and a sixth of the weight. They have several times the electrical and thermal conductivity of copper, and almost none of the environmental or physical degradation issues common to most metals, such as thermal contraction and ...

Many ceramic-based electronics, such as spark plugs and multilayer ceramic capacitors (found in consumer electronics, mobile phones, DVDs and video cameras, for example), are composed of a combination of oxides and metals. The oxides are used as a base to provide the product's electric, optical or magnetic properties, while the metals are used in electrodes, which propagate the electrical signals.