A device designed to help scientists study water by making it easier and less dangerous to collect water samples was the winning technological innovation at the UC Santa Barbara Technology Management Program’s (TMP) New Venture Competition (NVC) Finals on May 19.

If using a single atom to capture high-resolution images of nanoscale material sounds like science fiction, think again.

That’s exactly what the Quantum Sensing and Imaging Group at UC Santa Barbara has achieved. Members of physicist Ania Jayich’s lab worked for two years to develop a radically new sensor technology capable of nanometer-scale spatial resolution and exquisite sensitivity. Their findings appear in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The science of nanomaterials and devices has advanced rapidly in the last couple of decades. Think atomically flat graphene crystals, which could have important functions in electronics or new superconductors, which could lead to low-cost medical imaging.

UC Santa Barbara physicist Andrea Young is ready to further advance the field of developing and characterizing nanostructured materials, thanks to a grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) Young Investigator Research Program.

More than 1,000 community votes were cast in UC Santa Barbara’s third annual Art of Science competition sponsored by the Schuller Lab and the campus’s Center for Science and Engineering Partnerships at the California NanoSystems Institute. From the 40 entries, five winners and five honorable mentions were chosen.