Bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibres are promising building blocks for the development of sustainable materials with the potential to outperform conventional synthetic materials. BC, one of the purest forms of nanocellulose, is produced at the interface between the culture medium and air, where the aerobic bacteria have access to oxygen.

Scientists at Amherst College and Aalto University have created, for the first time, a 3D skyrmion in a quantum gas. The skyrmion was predicted theoretically over 40 years ago, but only now has it been observed experimentally. In an extremely sparse and cold quantum gas, the physicists have created knots made of the magnetic moments, or spins, of the constituent atoms. The knots exhibit many of the characteristics of ball lightning, which so...

The internet of things is coming, that much we know. But still it won’t; not until we have components and chips that can handle the explosion of data that comes with IoT. In 2020, there will already be 50 billion industrial internet sensors in place all around us. A single autonomous device – a smart watch, a cleaning robot, or a driverless car – can produce gigabytes of data each day, whereas an airbus may have over 10 000 sens...

  The family relationship between film characters clearly affects the reactions in the viewers' brain. The study has also detected a significant conflict between the reactions of the brain and the person's own account. Are we more prone to help the person that resembles us the most?

Researchers at Aalto University, Finland, have manufactured artificial materials with engineered electronic properties. By moving individual atoms under their microscope, the scientists were able to create atomic lattices with a predetermined electrical response. The possibility to precisely arrange the atoms on a sample bring 'designer quantum materials' one step closer to reality. By arranging atoms in a lattice, it becomes possible to engineer...

Now researchers from Aalto University, Uppsala University and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have managed to improve the long term stability of solar cells made of perovskite using "random network" nanotube films developed under the leadership of Professor Esko Kauppinen at Aalto University. Random network nanotube films are films composed of single-walled carbon nanotubes that in an electron m...

  Ionotronic devices rely on charge effects based on ions, instead of electrons or in addition to electrons. These devices open new opportunities for creating electrically switchable memories. However, there are still many technical challenges to overcome before this new kind of memories can be produced.

Researchers at Aalto University are the first to develop a plasmonic nanolaser that operates at visible light frequencies and uses so-called dark lattice modes. The laser works at length scales 1000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. The lifetimes of light captured in such small dimensions are so short that the light wave has time to wiggle up and down only a few tens or hundreds of times. The results open prospects for on-chi...

  Aerial photographs and photogrammetry together provide an accurate 3D model, which improves the prediction of the propagation of radio waves at millimetre-wave frequencies. The development of mobile devices has set increasingly high requirements for wireless networks and the emission of radio frequencies.

  Aalto University's Radio Science and Engineering researchers have developed a method that allows antennas to make the shift from the analogue to the digital world. The antennas currently in use are mostly based on technology developed half a century ago. 'Traditionally one antenna works with either one or a few different frequencies.

Novel scaffolds are shown enabling cells to behave in a different but controlled way in vitro due to the presence of aligned, self-assembled ceramic nanofibers of an ultra-high anisotropy ratio augmented into graphene shells. "This unique hybrid nano-network allows for an exceptional combination of selective guidance stimuli for stem cell development, variations in immune reactions, and behavior of cancer cells", says Professor Michael Gasik...

Solar cells have been manufactured already for a long from inexpensive materials with different printing techniques. Especially organic solar cells and dye-sensitised solar cells are suitable for printing. "We wanted to take the idea of printed solar cells even further, and see if their materials could be inkjet-printed as pictures and text like traditional printing inks," says University Lecturer Janne Halme.

The record was made using a partially superconducting microwave detector. The discovery may lead to ultrasensitive cameras and accessories for the emerging quantum computer. The first of the two key enabling developments is the detector design consisting of tiny pieces of superconducting aluminum and a golden nanowire. This design guarantees both efficient absorption of incoming photons and very sensitive readout. The whole detector is smaller th...

In his his Master's Thesis, Joonas Javanainen examined the level of preparedness the additional challenges of space impose on software design. The Aalto-1 nanosatellite uses fairly ordinary electronic components which are not specially designed to withstand radiation in space. However, the degree of reliability can be increased through good software architecture which takes into account possible failure scenarios caused by the environment.

In their perspective article in the journal Science, researchers from Aalto University call for consistent and standardised testing of superhydrophobic, i.e. extremely water-repellent, materials. Agreeing on a unified testing method is needed to allow community-wide comparison between published results. This would significantly progress development of superhydrophobic materials and their transfer to commercial products in, for instance, self-clea...

With people wanting to use smaller electronic devices, smaller energy storage systems are needed. Researchers of Aalto University in Finland have demonstrated the fabrication of electrochemically active organic lithium electrode thin films, which help make microbatteries more efficient than before. Researchers used a combined atomic/molecular layer deposition (ALD/MLD) technique, to prepare lithium terephthalate, a recently found anode material f...