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      Carbon-based smart nanomaterials in biomedicine and neuroengineering

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          Summary

          The search for advanced biomimetic materials that are capable of offering a scaffold for biological tissues during regeneration or of electrically connecting artificial devices with cellular structures to restore damaged brain functions is at the forefront of interdisciplinary research in materials science. Bioactive nanoparticles for drug delivery, substrates for nerve regeneration and active guidance, as well as supramolecular architectures mimicking the extracellular environment to reduce inflammatory responses in brain implants, are within reach thanks to the advancements in nanotechnology. In particular, carbon-based nanostructured materials, such as graphene, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and nanodiamonds (NDs), have demonstrated to be highly promising materials for designing and fabricating nanoelectrodes and substrates for cell growth, by virtue of their peerless optical, electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. In this review we discuss the state-of-the-art in the applications of nanomaterials in biological and biomedical fields, with a particular emphasis on neuroengineering.

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          Electric Field Effect in Atomically Thin Carbon Films

          We report a naturally-occurring two-dimensional material (graphene that can be viewed as a gigantic flat fullerene molecule, describe its electronic properties and demonstrate all-metallic field-effect transistor, which uniquely exhibits ballistic transport at submicron distances even at room temperature.
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            Fine structure constant defines visual transparency of graphene.

            There are few phenomena in condensed matter physics that are defined only by the fundamental constants and do not depend on material parameters. Examples are the resistivity quantum, h/e2 (h is Planck's constant and e the electron charge), that appears in a variety of transport experiments and the magnetic flux quantum, h/e, playing an important role in the physics of superconductivity. By and large, sophisticated facilities and special measurement conditions are required to observe any of these phenomena. We show that the opacity of suspended graphene is defined solely by the fine structure constant, a = e2/hc feminine 1/137 (where c is the speed of light), the parameter that describes coupling between light and relativistic electrons and that is traditionally associated with quantum electrodynamics rather than materials science. Despite being only one atom thick, graphene is found to absorb a significant (pa = 2.3%) fraction of incident white light, a consequence of graphene's unique electronic structure.
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              Two Dimensional Atomic Crystals

              We report free-standing atomic crystals that are strictly 2D and can be viewed as individual atomic planes pulled out of bulk crystals or as unrolled single-wall nanotubes. By using micromechanical cleavage, we have prepared and studied a variety of 2D crystals, including single layers of boron nitride, graphite, several dichalcogenides and complex oxides. These atomically-thin sheets (essentially gigantic 2D molecules unprotected from the immediate environment) are stable under ambient conditions, exhibit high crystal quality and are continuous on a macroscopic scale.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: Guest Editor
                Journal
                Beilstein J Nanotechnol
                Beilstein J Nanotechnol
                Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology
                Beilstein-Institut (Trakehner Str. 7-9, 60487 Frankfurt am Main, Germany )
                2190-4286
                2014
                23 October 2014
                : 5
                : 1849-1863
                Affiliations
                [1 ]Theoretical Neurobiology and Neuroengineering Lab, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium
                [2 ]Brain Mind Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland
                [3 ]Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield, S1 4DP Sheffield, UK
                Article
                10.3762/bjnano.5.196
                4222354
                25383297
                fd6c872d-8d95-4d3e-b8ef-ebd8ce65e45b
                Copyright © 2014, Monaco and Giugliano; licensee Beilstein-Institut.

                This is an Open Access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

                The license is subject to the Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology terms and conditions: ( http://www.beilstein-journals.org/bjnano)

                History
                : 25 June 2014
                : 29 September 2014
                Categories
                Review
                Nanoscience
                Nanotechnology

                carbon nanotubes,electrophysiology,graphene,microelectrodes,nanodiamonds,nanotechnology,neuroengineering,neuronal cultures,neuroscience

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