Feature Channels: Materials Science

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When a material is subjected to a shock or blast wave, damage often forms internally through spall fracture, and research is needed to know how these damaged materials respond to subsequent shock waves. Recent experimentation on spall fracture in metals found that, in certain cases, there was an almost complete lack of damage with only a thin band of altered microstructure observed. In the Journal of Applied Physics, researchers narrowed down exactly why the expected damage was missing.

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The $20 million Louisiana Material Design Alliance (LAMDA) aims to create a diverse and highly skilled STEM workforce for Louisiana.

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Argonne’s ReCell Center has already made pivotal discoveries as scientists create and test new recycling processes and battery designs. These discoveries will help grow a globally competitive U.S. recycling industry.

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The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has licensed a novel method to 3D print components used in neutron instruments for scientific research to the ExOne Company, a leading maker of binder jet 3D printing technology.

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In order to reduce the number of animal experiments in research, alternative methods are being sought. This is a particular challenge if the safety of substances that have hardly been studied is to be ensured, for instance, the completely new class of nanomaterials. To accomplish just that, Empa researchers are now combining test tube experiments with mathematical modelling.

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Humans have drawn technological inspiration from fish scales going back to ancient times: Romans, Egyptians, and other civilizations would dress their warriors in scale armor, providing both protection and mobility. Now, using advanced X-ray imaging techniques, Berkeley Lab scientists have characterized carp scales down to the nanoscale, enabling them to understand how the material is resistant to penetration while retaining flexibility.

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Scientists tested the performance of a dry, oil-free lubricant that could improve efficiency and decrease waste in industrial machinery. The dry solid lubricant includes diamond nanoparticles. It creates a surface coating that reduces friction 20-fold compared to oil-based lubricants.

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Scientists developed a new method of selectively attaching DNA strands to specific regions of nanoparticles. The DNA strands then dictate how the nanoparticles assemble into more complex architectures. The team used this approach to demonstrate 24 different nanoarchitectures.

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Scientists have developed a new type of nanostructure that mimics certain natural light-harvesting systems. The new nanostructures serve as a bridge to move energy generated by light-absorbing molecules to light-emitting molecules. The transfer has less than 1 percent energy loss.

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A three-year, $345,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will fund research at Binghamton University, State University of New York that seeks to modify paper’s mechanical properties while still retaining its advantages.

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When Jocelyn Bell first observed the emissions of a pulsar in 1967, the rhythmic pulses of radio waves so confounded astronomers that they considered whether the light could be signals sent by an alien civilization.

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A team of researchers has found a versatile method for the construction of high-quality vdW heterostructures using a dual-function polymeric film with a thickness of below five nanometers to promote the exfoliation of monolayer graphene.

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The Materials Research Society (MRS) and The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) have selected Megan Malara, The Ohio State University, as the 2020-2021 MRS/TMS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow. Malara will serve a one-year term working as a special legislative assistant on the staff of a member of Congress or congressional committee.

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During metal processing in the 3D laser printer, temperatures of more than 2,500 degrees Celsius are reached within milliseconds, causing some components of the alloys to evaporate. While widely considered a problem inherent to the process, Empa researchers spotted an opportunity – and are now using the effect to create new alloys with novel properties and embed them in 3D-printed metallic work pieces with micrometer precision.

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A doctoral student at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology has invented a soft polymer that is elastic and waterproof, and that knows how to heal itself in the event of an “injury,” such as a scratch, cut, or twist.

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An unexpected property of nanometer-scale antimony crystals — the spontaneous formation of hollow structures — could help give the next generation of lithium ion batteries higher energy density without reducing battery lifetime. The reversibly hollowing structures could allow lithium ion batteries to hold more energy and therefore provide more power between charges.

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Researchers demonstrated new ways to use electron microscopy to study liquids at high resolution. They used this technique to examine how nuclei in liquids and molecules vibrate at multiple length scales. This work can lead to new ways for scientists to describe liquids, the interfaces between fluids, and materials labeled with isotopes.

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Researchers developed biomaterial-based inks that respond to and quantify chemicals released from the body or in the environment by changing color. Multiple inks can be screen printed onto clothes or even face masks at high resolution, providing a detailed map of human response or exposure.

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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Argonne National Laboratory are developing a technology that centers on manganese, one of Earth’s most abundant metals.

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Researchers have developed a technology called “Artificial Chemist,” which incorporates artificial intelligence and an automated system for performing chemical reactions to accelerate R&D and manufacturing of commercially desirable materials.

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Cement production has to drastically reduce its environmental footprint. Empa researchers are, therefore working on alternative cement recipes that cause significantly fewer emissions or can even bind the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

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Researchers and engineers at the Spallation Neutron Source are making progress on the construction of VENUS, the facility’s newest neutron scattering instrument for studying materials in exciting new ways that are currently not possible for open research programs in the US.

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Recycling plastic faces several challenges, one of which is recycling different types of plastics together, because they have varying properties, each of which need to be addressed accordingly.

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Graphene triangles with an edge length of only a few atoms behave like peculiar quantum magnets. When two of these nano-triangles are joined, a "quantum entanglement" of their magnetic moments takes place: the structure becomes antiferromagnetic. This could be a breakthrough for future magnetic materials, and another step towards spintronics. An international group led by Empa researchers recently published the results in the journal "Angewandte Chemie".

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Using electron microscopes, Hwang—a materials scientist at Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—characterizes the structure and chemistry of operating battery electrode materials.

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In a study published in the June edition of IEEE Electron Device Letters, University at Buffalo electrical engineers describe how a gallium oxide transistor they created can handle more than 8,000 volts. The transistor could lead to smaller and more efficient electronic systems that control and convert electric power in electric cars, locomotives and airplanes. In turn, this could help improve how far these vehicles can travel.

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A personal, handheld device emitting high intensity ultraviolet light to disinfect areas by killing the Corona virus is now feasible, according to researchers at Penn State, the University of Minnesota and two Japanese universities.

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Researchers from the National University of Singapore have developed a new stretchable material that can self-heal and light up. The novel material has promising applications that include damage-proof flexible display screens and illuminating electronic skin for autonomous soft robots.

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Federal agencies should better coordinate their activities in plasma science and engineering (PSE) and jointly support new funding opportunities that take advantage of PSE’s overlaps with different science disciplines, according to a decadal report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

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Dr. Thomas Lograsso has been named director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Institute (CMI) at Ames Laboratory.

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In order to identify materials that can improve storage technologies for fuel cells and batteries, you need to be able to visualize the actual three-dimensional structure of a particular material up close and in context. Researchers from the University of Delaware’s Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation (CCEI) have done just that, developing new techniques for characterizing complex materials.

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Technion researchers have developed a self-disinfecting, reusable protective face mask. The disinfection process occurs when a layer of carbon fibers in the mask is heated using a low current source, such as a mobile phone charger. A patent application for the invention has been submitted in the U.S.

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The commercialization of a Cornell-created antimicrobial coating technology that keeps surfaces clean by extending the life of chlorine-based disinfectants – by days and even weeks – is being fast-tracked to determine how well it can combat COVID-19.

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In a recent theoretical study, scientists discovered the presence of the Hopfion topological structure in nano-sized particles of ferroelectrics — materials with promising applications in microelectronics and information technology.

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New research shows that in the important ceramic material silicon carbide, carbon atoms collect at those grain boundaries when the material is exposed to radiation. The finding could help engineers better understand the properties of ceramics and could aid in fine-tuning a new generation of ceramic materials.

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Cements, clays, soils, inks, paints, and even toothpaste. Many paste materials, also known as dense colloidal suspensions, stiffen as they age. Structural dynamics, or changes in the loads the materials undergo over time, are partly responsible for this change, but for decades, experts have suspected that there’s more going on inside these materials. Now, a University of Delaware professor and an international team of researchers have discovered a process called contact-controlled aging that explains some age-related changes in paste materials.

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Researchers from the National University of Singapore have created a new collection of atomically thin two-dimensional materials. Using novel synthesis conditions for transition metal dichalcogenides, more than 10 new materials have been made by the team, with many more still to be discovered.

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Researchers from the National University of Singapore have created a device called a ‘shadow-effect energy generator’ that makes use of the contrast in illumination between lit and shadowed areas to generate electricity. This novel concept opens up new approaches in harnessing indoor lighting conditions to power electronics.

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Scientists have forced a magnetic crystal into a spin liquid state, which may lead to insights into superconductivity and quantum computing.

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Researchers from the Colorado School of Mines have been using multiple supercomputers to study certain characteristics of zirconia. The team recently published their findings in the Journal of the European Ceramic Society.

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Until now, electron spins and orbitals were thought to go hand in hand in a class of materials that’s the cornerstone of modern information technology; you couldn’t quickly change one without changing the other. This study raises the possibility of controlling them separately.

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The ‘BRAINSTORM’ project involving researchers at WMG, University of Warwick has won gold at the JEC World 2020 Innovation Awards in the category ‘Railway Vehicles and Infrastructure’

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Sandwiching a 2-D light-emitting layer between ring-shaped carbon compounds significantly improved device efficiency and brightness.

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A team of researchers co-led by Berkeley Lab has observed unusually long-lived wavelike electrons called "plasmons" in a new class of electronically conducting material. Plasmons are very important for determining the optical and electronic properties of metals.

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LLNL researchers are studying ways to safely and rapidly remove viral threats from N95 respirators, without compromising the device’s fit and its ability to filter airborne particles, so they can be re-used.

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Michael Hillman, L. Robert and Mary L. Kimball Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State, will develop new computational methods to simulate how materials and structures fracture, thanks to a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award.

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Delia J. Milliron is the T. Brockett Hudson Professor in Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, formerly a staff scientist in the Molecular Foundry, Division of Materials Science at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

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Researchers combined gas foaming and 3D molding technologies to quickly transform electrospun membranes into complex 3D shapes for biomedical applications. The new approach demonstrates significant improvements in speed and quality compared with other methods, and is the first successful demonstration of formation of 3D neural tissue constructs with an ordered structure through differentiation of human neural progenitor/stem cells on these transformed 3D nanofiber scaffolds. They discuss their work in this week’s Applied Physics Reviews.

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Scientists have developed four-dimensional atomic electron tomography, which images the dynamics of structural changes at the atomic scale during nucleation. The scientists found that the nuclei came in a broad range of shapes and sizes and possess a diffuse interface surrounding a stable core. Their observations challenge the long-held classical nucleation theory.