Ternary clay-based composite material (TCC), composed of lime, clay and sand, and usually modified with sticky rice and other organic compounds as additives, was widely used historically in Chinese construction and buildings due to its high mechanical performance. In this study, to gain an insight into the micromechanical mechanism of this cementitious material, the nanomechanical properties an...

Over a scale which extends from about a fraction of a micron to tens of microns, metals display a strong sizedependence when deformed non uniformly into the plastic range: smaller is stronger. This e€ect has important implications for an increasing number of applications in electronics, structural materials and MEMS. Plastic behavior at this scale cannot be characterized by conventional plastic...

Myelination is one of the important stages of the nervous system (NS) development and regeneration. Understanding myelination is key to understanding certain diseases of the NS including healing after injuries. In a recent article by Huang et al (Nanotechnology. 2011;22(27):275101), the authors studied myelin structure at various stages of formation using a co-culture of Schwann cells and PC12 ...

A multi-scale investigation of nanostructured carbon films has been performed by means of inelastic light scattering (Raman and Brillouin scattering). Carbon films with different nanoand mesostructure have been deposited from supersonic cluster beams in a low energy deposition regime by exploiting aerodynamic focusing effects. Acoustic phonon propagation in the porous amorphous structure, where...