Press releases
Please quote Nature Materials as the source of these items.
October 2008
Silicon solar cells bent on success
A lightweight, silicon-based solar cell that can be installed on curved surfaces such as fabrics could be used for a broad range of applications. A paper online this week in Nature Materials describes the new device, one of the most efficient flexible solar cells designed so far.
In earlier designs, flexible solar cells were either made from inefficient organic materials or used thick inorganic films, for example of silicon, which had limited flexibility. John Rogers and colleagues make use of a transfer printing approach, where ultrathin, and therefore highly pliable, silicon components are lifted from a silicon wafer and transferred onto a polymer substrate, to make centimetre-scale solar cells. This approach combines the benefits of flexibility with the good light-absorption of silicon. The transfer printing technique itself is versatile and could be applied to a broad range of materials and device designs.
Ultrathin silicon solar microcells for semitransparent, mechanically flexible and microconcentrator module designs
Jongseung Yoon, Alfred J. Baca, Sang-Il Park, Paulius Elvikis, Joseph B. Geddes, III, Lanfang Li, Rak Hwan Kim, Jianliang Xiao, Shuodao Wang, Tae-Ho Kim, Michael J. Motala, Bok Yeop Ahn, Eric B. Duoss, Jennifer A. Lewis, Ralph G. Nuzzo, Placid M. Ferreira, Yonggang Huang, Angus Rockett & John A. Rogers
Published online: 05 October 2008 | doi 10.1038/nmat2287
Straight to the heart
A new kind of non-inflammatory drug-delivery vehicle for the treatment of heart disease is reported online this week in Nature Materials. Michael Davis and colleagues demonstrate that 'polymeric microspheres' could be a useful form of drug transportation for a range of conditions.
Many polymer-based drug-delivery materials break down in the body to form acidic by-products that cause local inflammation in the target tissue. In the treatment of inflammatory diseases, such as cardiac dysfunction following heart attacks, this inflammation is detrimental to the recovery of the tissue.
Davis and his team show that polymer microspheres loaded with a known drug can be injected directly into the heart and, because of the neutral and non-inflammatory breakdown products of the polymer, they do not worsen the already inflamed section of the heart. This improved treatment of cardiac dysfunction is a result of the controlled release of the encapsulated drug from the polymer particles, allowing the diseased area to experience a sustained amount of the drug over several days. In comparison, the direct injection of the drug without the polymer shows no such beneficial effect.
The use of a polymer delivery vehicle with non-inflammatory decomposition products could have applications in inflammatory diseases of other organs, including liver, lung and bowel.
Sustained release of a p38 inhibitor from non-inflammatory microspheres inhibits cardiac dysfunction
Jay C. Sy, Gokulakrishnan Seshadri, Stephen C. Yang, Milton Brown, Teresa Oh, Sergey Dikalov, Niren Murthy & Michael E. Davis
Published online: 19 October 2008 | doi 10.1038/nmat2299
