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The ability to engineer the thermal conductivity of materials allows us to control the flow of heat and derive novel functionalities such as thermal rectification, thermal switching and thermal cloaking. While this could be achieved by making use of composites and metamaterials at bulk length-scales, engineering the thermal conductivity at micro- and nano-scale dimensions is considerably more challenging. In this work, we show that the local thermal conductivity along a single Si nanowire can be tuned to a desired value (between crystalline and amorphous limits) with high spatial resolution through selective helium ion irradiation with a well-controlled dose. The underlying mechanism is understood through molecular dynamics simulations and quantitative phonon-defect scattering rate analysis, where the behaviour of thermal conductivity with dose is attributed to the accumulation and agglomeration of scattering centres at lower doses. Beyond a threshold dose, a crystalline-amorphous transition was observed., Manipulating the flow of heat at the nanoscale is difficult because it requires the ability to tune the thermal properties of tiny structures. Here, the authors locally change the thermal conductivity of an individual silicon nanowire by irradiating it with helium ions.

Over the last decade, femtosecond lasers have emerged as an important tool to perform accurate and fine dissections with minimal collateral damage in biological tissue. The most common surgical procedure in medicine utilizing femtosecond laser is LASIK. During the femtosecond laser dissection process, the corneal collagen fibers inevitably undergo biomechanical and thermal changes on a sub-micro- or even a nanoscale level, which can potentially lead to post-surgical complications. In this study, we utilized helium ion microscopy, complemented with transmission electron microscopy to examine the femtosecond laser-induced collagen fibrillar damage in ex vivo human corneas. We found that the biomechanical damage induced by laser etching, generation of tissue bridges, and expansion of cavitation bubble and its subsequent collapse, created distortion to the surrounding collagen lamellae. Femtosecond laser-induced thermal damage was characterized by collapsed collagen lamellae, loss of collagen banding, collagen coiling, and presence of spherical debris. Our findings have shown the ability of helium ion microscopy to provide high resolution images with unprecedented detail of nanoscale fibrillar morphological changes in order to assess a tissue damage, which could not be resolved by conventional scanning electron microscopy previously. This imaging technology has also given us a better understanding of the tissue-laser interactions in a nano-structural manner and their possible effects on post-operative wound recovery.

Split-ring resonators are basic elements of metamaterials, which can induce a magnetic response in metallic nanosctructures. Tunability of such response up to the visible frequency range is still a challenge. Here we introduce the concept of the split-ball resonator and demonstrate the strong magnetic response in the visible for both gold and silver spherical plasmonic nanoparticles with nanometre scale cuts. We realize this concept experimentally by employing the laser-induced transfer method to produce near-perfect metallic spheres and helium ion beam milling to make cuts with the clean straight sidewalls and nanometre resolution. The magnetic resonance is observed at 600 nm in gold and at 565 nm in silver nanoparticles. This method can be applied to the structuring of arbitrary three-dimensional features on the surface of nanoscale resonators. It provides new ways for engineering hybrid resonant modes and ultra-high near-field enhancement.

Spin transport in carbon-based materials has stimulated much interest due to their ballistic conductance and a long phase coherence length. While much research has been conducted on individual carbon nanotubes, current growth and placement techniques are incompatible with large-scale fabrication. Here, we report on nonlocal spin injection and detection in single-walled carbon nanotube networks. We observe spin transport over a distance of 1 \ensuremath{\mu}m and extract a spin diffusion length of 1.6--2.4 \ensuremath{\mu}m with an injected spin polarization from CoFe into nanotube network of 18$%$--41$%$. Our observations demonstrate that spin transport is possible in carbon nanotube networks due to the formation of natural tunnel barriers between nanotubes and metallic contacts.