Solar cells

Michael Grätzel, of the Lausanne Federal Institute of Technology, has given his name to a radically new type of solar cell, which uses an organic dye painted over a layer of nanocrystals of titanium dioxide to absorb the light. Both materials and production methods are much cheaper than the old type, it is not temperature dependent and it gives good results even in low light.

Nano-robots

In the field of nanorobotics, ETZH professor Bradley Nelson and his team have developed nano-robots for use in medical interventions at cellular level or for precise delivery of a drug – plus the slightly larger robots needed to manipulate them. The team is working on the production of carbon nanotubes which can be used for building motors and sensors. Although construction of these tubes is now relatively easy, the problem remaining to be tackled is how to produce them in a precise spot, and how then to manipulate them.

Polymer fibres

Scientists at EMPA, the materials research institute of the Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, have constructed an apparatus which uses an improved electro-spinning technique to produce polymer fibres with diameters of a few nanometers. These fibres can be used to manufacture special filters for gas or liquids, or for substrates to encourage the growth of human tissue.

Memory chip

Researchers at the IBM research facility in Rüschlikon, near Zurich, have developed a tiny chip for mobile phones and digital cameras, which uses nanotechnology to achieve far higher rates of data storage than ever before. It uses silicon tips to create pits in a special polymer. Each pit is about 10 nanometers in diameter, and represents one bit.