Scientists have gained important insight into the mechanisms that drive stability and activity in materials during oxygen evolution reactions. This insight will guide the practical design of materials for electrochemical fuel production.
Metal additive manufacturing is an emerging industry projected to be worth nearly $10 billion within the next seven years. Oregon State Engineers Brian Paul and Somayeh Pasebani have secured more than $6.3 million in funding from the National Science Foundation and other sources to bring a number of metal additive manufacturing technologies to market.
A multi-institutional team of researchers led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Francesco Fornasiero has developed a smart, breathable fabric designed to protect the wearer against biological and chemical warfare agents.
Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York have developed “the first liquid metal lattice in the world." The team has created a series of prototypes that return to their shapes when crushed.
If a photon source could be placed on a single chip and made to produce photons at a high rate, this could enable high-speed quantum communication or information processing. In Applied Physics Reviews, a simple on-chip photon source using a hyperbolic metamaterial is proposed, and investigators carried out calculations to show that a prototype arranged in a precise way can overcome problems of low efficiency and allow for high repetition rates for on-chip photon sources.
When it comes to increasing electric storage efficiency and electric breakdown strength — the ability of an electrical system to operate at higher voltage and temperatures with great efficiency — increasing one traditionally has led to a decrease in the other. Penn State researchers, led by Qiming Zhang, distinguished professor of electrical engineering, recently developed a scalable method that relies on engineered materials to increase both properties.
Irvine, Calif., May 4, 2020 – In Northern Chile’s Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, microorganisms are able to eke out an existence by extracting water from the very rocks they colonize. Through work in the field and laboratory experiments, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, as well as Johns Hopkins University and UC Riverside, gained an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms by which some cyanobacteria survive in harsh surroundings.
Iowa State engineers have developed a next-generation solar cell that takes advantage of the promising elctro-optical properties of perovskite materials.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have created and tested a single-crystal electrode that promises to yield pivotal discoveries for advanced batteries under development worldwide.
Recent research reveals a materials solution for speedy charge and discharge time and a new way to get more silicon into electrodes. Both methods pack far more energy than current technology and offer scaleable synthesis.
At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, researchers working at the intersection of materials science, chemical engineering, and physics are uncovering new and innovative ways to unlock those promising and useful abilities using light, temperature, pressure, or magnetic fields.
The groundbreaking discovery of an optical version of quantum hall effect (QHE), published today in Physical Review X, demonstrates the leadership of Rensselaer in this vital research field.
Researchers designed a nanodevice with the potential to prevent peptides from forming dangerous plaques in the brain in order to halt development of Alzheimer’s disease.
A new technique developed by a team including researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Argonne National Laboratory makes atomic layer deposition possible on nearly any membrane.
A team of materials scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – scientists who normally spend their time researching things like high-performance materials for thermoelectrics or battery cathodes – have built a text-mining tool in record time to help the global scientific community synthesize the mountain of scientific literature on COVID-19 being generated every day.
Rutgers engineers have created a highly effective way to paint complex 3D-printed objects, such as lightweight frames for aircraft and biomedical stents, that could save manufacturers time and money and provide new opportunities to create “smart skins” for printed parts. The findings are published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.
Demand is growing for new materials that can be printed at ever smaller dimensions. Scientists are now creating metal-based nanomaterials for circuit boards that could be resistant to high-altitude radiation encountered by aerospace equipment and fighter jets.
In a new study led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, researchers have uncovered a novel way in which the excitations of magnetic spins in two different thin films can be strongly coupled to each other through their common interface.
Florida State researchers have published a new study in the journal Science Advances that explains how they created a hollow nanostructure for metal halide perovskites that would allow the material to emit a highly efficient blue light.
In research published today in Advanced Functional Materials, a team of engineers, material scientists, and physicists demonstrated how a new material — a lead-free chalcogenide perovskite — that hadn’t previously been considered for use in solar cells could provide a safer and more effective option than others that are commonly considered.
Aromaticity and antiaromaticity are important concepts in organic chemistry, helping to define and explain how molecules vary in their stability and reactivity. Researchers previously identified these concepts together in organic biphenylenes. Now, new research has created metallic biphenylenes that incorporate uranium and thorium.
Collaborators from the University of California San Diego and New York University (NYU) used salt, soap and water to make “bling” with a proposed novel experiment by UC San Diego’s Jérémie Palacci to form ionic colloidal crystals from common colloids.
Using just electrostatic charge, common microparticles can spontaneously organize themselves into highly ordered crystalline materials—the equivalent of table salt or opals, according to a new study led by New York University chemists and published in Nature.
Scientists investigated grain boundaries in a solid electrolyte at an unprecedentedly small scale. The resulting insights provide new avenues for tuning chemical properties in the material to improve performance.
LaShanda Korley’s lab at the University of Delaware creates new materials inspired by nature for applications in healthcare, sensing, soft robotics and more. Korley is pushing the boundaries of what materials scientists and engineers previously thought possible and she has now been named to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).
Scientists have discovered a light-induced switching mechanism in a Dirac semimetal. The mechanism establishes a new way to control the topological material, driven by back-and-forth motion of atoms and electrons, which will enable topological transistor and quantum computation using light waves.
A thin, single layer of graphene material only 1 atom thick may reduce metal pipe corrosion rates as much as 100 times. These new crystalline 2D materials could mean big savings to industries.
Inspired by how human bone and colorful coral reefs adjust mineral deposits in response to their surrounding environments, Johns Hopkins researchers have created a self-adapting material that can change its stiffness in response to the applied force. This advancement can someday open the doors for materials that can self-reinforce to prepare for increased force or stop further damage.
Understanding droplet formation in pure water in a controlled lab setting is challenging enough, but in the atmosphere, droplets form in the presence of many other substances.
A high-sensitivity X-ray technique at Berkeley Lab is attracting a growing group of scientists because it provides a deep, precise dive into battery chemistry.
Researchers used microwave-plasma chemical vapor deposition to create thin crystal films of a novel boron-rich boron-carbide material that has 37 percent the hardness of cubic diamond and acts as an insulator. The new material’s properties were predicted from first-principles analysis.
UPTON, NY – A collaboration of scientists from the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), Yale University, and Arizona State University has designed and tested a new two-dimensional (2-D) catalyst that can be used to improve water purification using hydrogen peroxide.
Irvine, Calif., April 13, 2020 – Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have architecturally designed plate-nanolattices – nanometer-sized carbon structures – that are stronger than diamonds as a ratio of strength to density. In a recent study in Nature Communications, the scientists report success in conceptualizing and fabricating the material, which consists of closely connected, closed-cell plates instead of the cylindrical trusses common in such structures over the past few decades.
Disease detection at an early stage is one of the biggest challenges biochemists and materials scientists are trying to meet by combining their expertise at Missouri S&T. The researchers used nanotechnology in biomedical diagnostics – a process called nanodiagnostics – to create a new, ultrasensitive DNA biosensor. The new sensor could potentially detect DNA-based biomarkers for early diagnosis of cancer and genetic disorders, as well as monitor patient responses to therapies.
As reel-to-reel tapes make a comeback among audio buffs, scientists are unraveling the secret of why some decades-old tapes are unplayable, while others retain their original superb audio fidelity. The researchers are presenting their results through ACS SciMeetings online platform.
Cornell researchers in fiber science and apparel design are putting their knowledge and energies into keeping health care personnel on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic from becoming patients themselves.
Turning a brittle oxide into a flexible membrane and stretching it on a tiny apparatus flipped it from a conducting to an insulating state and changed its magnetic properties. The technique can be used to study and design a broad range of materials for use in things like sensors and detectors.
Scientists studying high-Tc superconductors at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have definitive evidence for the existence of a state of matter known as a pair density wave--first predicted by theorists some 50 years ago. Their results show that this phase coexists with superconductivity in a well-known bismuth-based copper-oxide superconductor.
Researchers now report an improved material that could take braille displays to the next level, allowing those who are blind or who have low vision to more easily understand text and images, while lowering cost.
Health care workers treating COVID-19 patients across the nation are facing a critical shortage of personal protection equipment, especially face shields and respiratory N95 face masks. DePaul University faculty and students are answering the call by using 3D printers to manufacture these much-needed supplies for hospitals in Illinois.
Missing March Madness? Let Fermilab fill a small part of the void created in these times of social distancing and shelter-in-place. Participate in Fermilab’s sendup of the NCAA tournament: March Magnets. Learn about eight different types of magnets used in particle physics, each with an example from a project or experiment in which Fermilab is a player. Then head over to the Fermilab Twitter feed on March 30 to participate in our March Magnets playoffs.
Library employees at the University of Utah are working together to produce and distribute face shields desperately needed in the health care community while facing the COVID-19 pandemic. In an agreement with University of Utah Health, the shields are 3-D printed to meet personal protective equipment (PPE) standards. Approximately 300 face shields can be produced daily.
New research conducted in part at Brookhaven Laboratory may bring a whole new class of chemical elements into a materials science balancing act for designing alloys for aviation and other applications.
Scientists have designed a recyclable plastic called poly(diketoenamine)s, or PDKs. In contrast to many plastics, scientists can recover and free the monomers of PDK plastic from each other and additives by dunking it in a highly acidic solution. Manufacturers can then reassemble the plastic into a different shape, texture, and color without loss of performance or quality.