Materials Today  Volume 16, Number 12  December 2013

micrometres on charging on discharge it

only partially contracts resulting to 80 mm.
However, the tin oxide is held together in
a permeable polymer binder. If this could be
optimized so that the electrode were held
together more effectively and so that deformation would not lead to cracking, it might

be possible to make the contraction reversible so that recharging repeatedly would be

possible. Moreover, tin oxide is itself not
the optimum material but was used simply
to demonstrate how much information
about deformation might be extracted
using tomography. Researchers are working

NEWS

on other materials less susceptible to

volume changes, this study should accelerate their development too.
Particles of a tin oxide electrode. Credit:
Martin Ebner, Laboratory for Nanoelectronics, ETH Zurich.
David Bradley

Artificial cell membranes could bring improved biosensors

An approach to writing artificial cell membranes on graphene using a nanoscaled tip
has been developed in a new study. With
our bodies containing around 100 trillion
cells, each enclosed in a cell membrane that
holds numerous proteins, ion channels and
other biomolecules that carry out vital
functions, these biomimetic membranes
could lead to a range of medical and biotechnology applications, including in biosensors and drug delivery and screening.
The research team, led by Aravind Vijayaraghavan from the University of Manchester
and Michael Hirtz from Karlsruhe Institute
of Technology, whose study was reported in
the journal Nature Communications [Hirtz,
et al., Nat. Commun. (2013), doi:10.1038/
ncomms3591], showed how to write tailored
patches of phospholipid membrane directly
onto a graphene substrate to produce these
membranes that simulate biological structures. By examining how lipids spread and

self-assemble in this way, they achieved a

better understanding of both their structure
and control.
As cell membranes cannot be examined
directly easily, model membranes were
applied to special surfaces. The biomimetic
membranes were produced using lipid dippen nanolithography (L-DPN), which has a
very sharp tip extremely accurately operated by machine and an apex of only a few
nanometers, in a process that did not
damage the graphene.
With parallel arrays of the tips, the team
showed how different lipid mixtures can be
written in parallel, allowing for patterns of
variable chemical composition with a size
smaller than an individual cell. When the
lipids are positioned onto graphene, they
spread out uniformly, forming high-quality
membranes. When the lipids contain the
corresponding binding sites, the membranes actively bind streptavidin, a protein

produced by some bacteria. Once the lipids

are charged, the charge is transferred from
the lipids into the graphene, altering its
conductivity, offering potential uses as a
detection signal in biosensors.
The study also has implications in areas
such as the engineering of better interfaces
between graphene and cells and for making
graphene bio-compatible. The team now
hopes to gain a better understanding of
the assembly process, with the aim of applying their biomimetic membranes to the
development of new biosensors based on
graphene and lipids, as well as sensors that
react to the binding of proteins by a change
of conductivity and in detecting the function of ion channels in membranes. Protein
sensors could find applications in medical
diagnostics, while controlling the function
of ion channels is advantageous in drug
research.
Laurie Donaldson

The thinnest, strongest carbon wire

While graphene is the wonder material that
perhaps usurped the fullerenes and even the
nanotubes from the pinnacle of technological interest, there is a new pretender vying
for the crown carbyne.
Carbynes are carbon chains held together
by repeating double bonds or alternating
single and triple bonds. They are true onedimensional material lacking the 2D sheetlike nature of graphene and the 3D structure of hollow carbon nanotubes. Now,
Boris Yakobson and his group at Rice University, Texas, USA, have calculated that
hypothetical carbyne nanorods could be
twice as strong as graphene weight for
weight [Yakobson, et al., ACS Nano
(2013), doi:10.1021/nn404177r].
The teams first-principles calculations
also suggest that stretching carbyne as little
as 10 percent alters its electronic band gap

Nanoropes or nanorods of carbyne might find uses in electronics. Credit: Vasilii Artyukhov/Rice
University.

significantly. A 90-degree end-to-end rotation, they predict, makes it a magnetic

semiconductor. Moreover, adding side

chains can allow this twist to be controlled
465

NEWS

as well as allowing materials scientists to get

a grip on the chains, appropriate end groups
can switch on stiffness too or endow it
with the capacity to store energy. The team
also suggests that carbyne will be stable at
room temperature and resist the formation
of cross links.
You could look at it as an ultimately thin
graphene ribbon, reduced to just one atom,
or an ultimately thin nanotube, Yakobson
explains. It could be useful for nanomechanical systems, in spintronic devices, as
sensors, as strong and light materials for
mechanical applications or for energy storage, but regardless of the applications aca-

Materials Today  Volume 16, Number 12  December 2013

demically, its very exciting to know the

strongest possible assembly of atoms.
Carbyne is not a new concept, scientists in
the 19th century posited its existence and a
very similar material was synthesized in the
USSR in 1960. It has also been observed in
compressed graphite and hypothesized in
cosmic dust. The calculations point to carbyne being the highest energy state for stable
carbon in contrast to graphite, diamonds,
nanotubes and fullerenes which represent
carbons stable ground states, the lowest
possible energy configurations.
I have always been interested in the
stability of ultimately thin wires of any-

thing and how thin a rod you could make

from a given chemical, Yakobson says.
We had a paper 10 years ago about silicon
in which we explored what happens to
silicon nanowire as it gets thinner. To me,
this was just a part of the same question.
There are some quite intriguing details in
carbyne electronics to be explored, Yakobson told Materials Today, like the metalinsulator transition. He adds that exploring
whether or not this material could be stabilized within carbon or boron nitride
nanotubes is of interest as there have
already been experimental hints of that.
David Bradley

Explaining exotic high-temperature superconductivity

Two scientists in the US have proposed a
theoretical approach that could become a
grand unified theory of exotic superconductivity. Their new model conceptual
framework offers key principles to explain
superconductivity and the exotic intertwined phases of a range of different types
of seemingly distinct correlated superconductors that, if successful, could resolve the
problem of what causes high-temperature
(high-TC) superconductivity. The approach
could help identify the key elements for
more effective superconductors than currently possible.
As reported in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences [Davis, Lee, PNAS
(2013), doi:10.1073/pnas.1316512110], Seamus Davis at the Brookhaven National
Laboratory and Cornell University, and
Dung-Hai Lee from the Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory and the University of
California, Berkeley, within a simple model
have proposed and demonstrated that antiferromagnetic electron interactions can
drive superconductivity and the various

intertwined phases across different families

of high-TC superconductors. The pair claim
that such intertwined phases and the emergence of superconductivity is due to
how the antiferromagnetic influence interacts with another variable, Fermi surface
topology.
With precise experimental data now available on the superconducting electronic
structure of different types of correlated
superconductors, and more useful detail
on fermilogy and intertwined broken symmetry phases, the team synthesized these
observations to offer a general theory of
correlated superconductivity. Their theory
incorporates the overarching antiferromagnetic electron interactions and all known
differences in Fermi surface from material
to material, and can predict the kinds of
electronic phases that should emerge up to
and including superconductivity for these
different conditions.
Although research into high-TC superconductors has focused on energy-saving applications, and proven that the interactions

between electrons that cause antiferromagnetic interaction is related to high-TC superconductivity, there are many complex
behaviors among the electrons that have
made it difficult to reach consensus on the
mechanism involved to explain why such
superconductivity occurs in these materials.
The idea behind this study is if the antiferromagnetic interaction is responsible for
antiferromagnetism and superconductivity,
maybe its also responsible for these other
ordering phenomena. After checking out the
hypothesis on a case-by-case basis, it was
found to be correct.
High superconducting transition temperatures means that high-TC superconductors could hold the potential for new
applications in power generation and
transmission, transport, information technology and medicine. The team now hope
to use these general concepts to test which
other materials will have the necessary
elements to drive high TC superconductivity.
Laurie Donaldson

Flattened particles mimic immune cells

A new technique based on flattening artificial particles to mimic immune cells in our
body could offer a defense against cancerous
tumors, according to a study. An interdisciplinary team from Johns Hopkins University
in Baltimore has shown that elongated particles were better than spherical ones for
activating the immune system to recognize
and destroy cancer cells in laboratory tests.
466

The research, published in the journal Biomaterials [Sunshine, et al., Biomaterials

(2013), doi:10.1016/j.biomaterials.2013.09.
050], found that shape is an important parameter in the design of biodegradable, artificial antigen-presenting cells (APC), small
spheres embellished with bits of tumor proteins and molecular danger signals that
have been used in immunotherapy techni-

ques where immune cells are collected from

a cancer patient and mixed with the artificial
APCs. These capsules can then convey toxic
drugs through the body to reach tumor cells.
While chemotherapy drugs cannot recognize
the difference between healthy and tumorous
cells, the immune system cells are able to.
Flattening the particles was based
on embedding a standard group of round