Jin Kim Montclare, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering led a team who previously reported a responsive hydrogel formed using a coiled-coil protein. The team expanded their studies to identify the gelation of Q protein at distinct temperatures and pH conditions.
Think about how many different pieces of technology the average household has purchased in the last decade.
One vision that is currently driving material scientists is to combine organic molecules (and their diverse functionalities) with the technological possibilities offered by extremely sophisticated semiconductor electronics.
Engineers developed inexpensive methods to make “impossible materials” that interact in unusual ways with microwave energy. Thin film polymers inkjet printed with tiny component patterns collect or transmit energy with much greater selectivity, sensitivity, and power than conventional materials.
UPTON, NY—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has named Alex Harris as Director of the Lab’s Energy Sciences Department, effective May 1, 2021. In his new position, Harris will manage several divisions of the Laboratory, including the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, the Chemistry Division, and the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Division.
Just how do spiders walk straight up -- and even upside-down across -- so many different types of surfaces? Answering this question could open up new opportunities for creating powerful, yet reversible, bioinspired adhesives.
Scientists have developed a new technique that could revolutionise medical imaging procedures using light.
Properties of materials are often defined by imperfections in their atomic structure, especially when the material itself is just one atom thick, such as graphene. Researchers at the University of Vienna have now developed a method for controlled creation of such imperfections into graphene at length scales approaching the macroscopic world. These results, confirmed by atomically resolved microscope images and published in the journal Nano Letters, serve as an essential starting point both for tailoring graphene for applications and for the development of new materials.
In research published today in Nature Nanotechnology, a team of materials scientists and engineers, led by Jian Shi, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, used a strain gradient in order to break inversion symmetry, creating a novel optoelectronic phenomenon in the promising material molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) — for the first time.
Argonne National Laboratory (Argonne) in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has awarded Codeplay a contract implementing the oneAPI DPC++ compiler, an implementation of the SYCL open standard software, to support AMD GPU-based high-performance compute (HPC) supercomputers.
Machine learning techniques are accelerating the development of stronger alloys for power plants, which will yield efficiency, cost, and decarbonization benefits.
A Penn State-led team of researchers report they have taken a step toward overcoming the challenge of inexpensive hydrogen production by using supercomputers to find materials that could help accelerate hydrogen separation when water is exposed to light, a process called photocatalysis.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have successfully used graphene — one of the strongest, thinnest known materials — to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus in laboratory experiments.
PNNL intern Ki Ahn spent this past year as an undergraduate at PNNL gaining hands-on research experience in clean energy storage technologies for vehicles and aviation. Ahn is enrolling in Stanford University this fall to finish his bachelor’s degree. With plans to major in mechanical engineering or computer science, he wants to explore how future aircraft technologies can be designed to reduce harmful environmental effects.
New energy-efficient dehumidifier technology holds promise to reduce energy consumption in residential A/C systems and increase the range of electric vehicles.
An Argonne engineer applied a specific type of artificial intelligence to the problem of how to predict material structures by only knowing some of their properties. This first-of-its-kind discovery led to further insights into the long-term durability of nuclear materials.
PNNL's Dongsheng Li’s crystal formation research helped reveal why nanoparticles sometimes self-assemble into five-sided shapes. The discovery will potentially be useful in medical research, electronics, and other applications.
The big holes in Swiss cheese help make it a tasty treat. Now, scientists at PPPL are adding tiny, Swiss-cheese-type holes to components to improve the process of bringing to Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars.
A study led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities researchers uncovered a property of magnetic materials that will allow engineers to develop more efficient spintronic devices in the future. Spintronics focuses on using the magnetic “spin” property of electrons instead of their charge, which improves the speed and efficiency of devices used for computing and data storage.
Researchers have created a plant-based, sustainable, scalable material that could replace single-use plastics in many consumer products.
The research and innovation building NEST of Empa and Eawag can now be visited virtually at any time and from anywhere in the world. The launch of the virtual NEST tour is a further step towards closing the gap between laboratory research and market entry. By making numerous innovations, developed and demonstrated at NEST, accessible to a much broader and more international audience, the virtual NEST is making a significant contribution to ensuring that sustainable innovations in the building and energy sector can spread faster and thus gain a foothold in the construction industry.
Iowa State students, faculty and staff are planning for what will happen to the approximately 500 plexiglass barriers that were erected to protect public health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A new technology could dramatically improve the safety and performance of lithium-ion batteries that operate with gas electrolytes at ultra-low temperatures. By keeping electrolytes from vaporizing, the technology can prevent pressure buildup inside the battery that leads to swelling and explosions.
Researchers have discovered a new electronic property at the frontier between the thermal and quantum sciences in a specially engineered metal alloy – and in the process identified a promising material for future devices that could turn heat on and off with the application of a magnetic “switch.”
Scientists studied what happens when very short pulses of laser light strike a magnetic material. Understanding how magnetic correlations change over short timescales is the first step in being able to control magnetism for applications.
MIT researchers have created the first fiber with digital capabilities, able to sense, store, analyze, and infer activity after being sewn into a shirt.
UPTON, NY—A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has studied an elusive property in cathode materials, called a valence gradient, to understand its effect on battery performance. The findings, published in Nature Communications, demonstrated that the valence gradient can serve as a new approach for stabilizing the structure of high-nickel-content cathodes against degradation and safety issues.
The number of data-transmitting microdevices, for instance in packaging and transport logistics, will increase sharply in the coming years. All these devices need energy, but the amount of batteries would have a major impact on the environment. Empa researchers have developed a biodegradable mini-capacitor that can solve the problem. It consists of carbon, cellulose, glycerin and table salt. And it works reliably.
Scientists replicate the molecular properties of the natural cement used by barnacles and mussels to create a powerful adhesive using silk protein. The new adhesive can work well in both dry and underwater conditions.
To help the field grow, Seshadri Ramkumar – now a professor of advanced materials – has partnered with the Indian government and technical textiles organizations around the world to host conferences in India since the early 2000s.
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have determined that heating N95 respirators up to 75 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes deactivates a surrogate coronavirus without compromising the device’s fit and its ability to filter airborne particles.
Researchers at Aalto University, in collaboration with Finnish acoustics company Lumir, have now studied how the acoustic solutions around us could become more eco-friendly, with the help of cellulose fibres. The acoustic insulation market is already expected to hit 15 billion USD by 2022 as construction firms and industry pay more attention to sound environments.
ORNL story tips: Un-Earthly ice, buildings in the loop, batteries unbound and 3D printing for geothermal
Penn State graduate students in materials science and materials engineering learn valuable career skills such as concise presentation of their research and win prizes during the 2021 Millennium Café PPG Elevator Pitch Competition on May 15 and May 18.
Researchers have combined two or three types of nanoparticles to produce new materials with structures known as superlattices. In some instances, the structures display fundamental new properties such as superfluorescence. The researchers' discovery is reported in the journal Nature.
Irvine, Calif., May 27, 2021 — The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science has awarded funding to two University of California, Irvine scientists under its DOE Early Career Research Program. Mohammad Abdolhosseini Qomi, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Penghui Cao, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, were among 83 researchers selected from university and national laboratory applicants to receive the research awards.
Researchers have discovered that engineering one-dimensional line defects into certain materials can increase their electrical performance.
The DOE Early Career Research Program supports exceptional researchers during the crucial early years of their careers and helps advance scientific discovery in fundamental sciences
Mark B. Chadwick, chief scientist and chief operating officer of Weapons Physics, and Stuart A. Maloy, deputy group leader for Materials Science at Radiation and Dynamic Extremes, were named fellows, while D.V. Rao, program director for the Laboratory’s Civilian Nuclear Program, earned a special award for making advanced nuclear energy systems a reality.
Six Argonne scientists receive Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program Awards.
An international team led by Empa and ETH Zurich researchers is playing with shape-engineered nanoscale building blocks that are up to 100-times larger than atoms and ions. And although these nano "Lego bricks" interact with each other with forces vastly different and much weaker than those holding atoms and ions together, they form crystals all by themselves, the structures of which resemble the ones of natural minerals. These new mega-crystals or superlattices that are depicted on the cover of the latest issue of "Nature" exhibit unique properties such as superfluorescence – and may well usher in a new era in materials science
Crystals are wonders of nature and science with important applications in electronics and optics. Scientists from Argonne have new insights into how gallium nitride crystals grow. Gallium nitride crystals are in wide use in light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and may form transistors for high-power switching electronics to make electric grids more energy efficient and smarter.
Researchers show in a new study that a single material, a layered crystal consisting of the elements rhenium and silicon, turns out to be the gold standard of transverse thermoelectric devices.
Sandia Labs' Experimental Impact Mechanics Lab packs a world-class punch in 200-plus square feet of weights, rods, cables, bars, heaters, compressors and high-speed cameras.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a renewal of funding for the Materials Innovation Platform (MIP) national user facility at Penn State’s Materials Research Institute (MRI), the Two-Dimensional Crystal Consortium (2DCC). The 2DCC is one of four MIPs in the United States and was awarded $20.1 million over five years, an increase of 13% above the initial award in 2016.
Scientists at Empa and EPFL have identified a new type of defect as the most common source of disorder in on-surface synthesized graphene nanoribbons, a novel class of carbon-based materials that may prove extremely useful in next-generation electronic devices. The researchers identified the atomic structure of these so-called "bite" defects and investigated their effect on quantum electronic transport. These kinds of defective zigzag-edged nanoribbons may provide suitable platforms for certain applications in spintronics.
In everyday life, phase transitions usually have to do with temperature changes - for example, when an ice cube gets warmer and melts.
An interdisciplinary team of Cornell researchers has taken its breakthrough discovery – which melded the ability of soft organic materials to spontaneously self-organize with quantum materials to create superconductors with novel porous architectures – and upped the ante by designing a new cohort of these “quantum metamaterials” that can achieve superconductivity at temperatures competitive with state-of-the-art solid-state materials synthesis.
Now a team, again led by David Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering, has bested its own record by a factor of two with an electron microscope pixel array detector (EMPAD) that incorporates even more sophisticated 3D reconstruction algorithms.
As first pointed out by the German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, black holes bend space-time to an extreme degree due to their extraordinary concentration of mass, and heat up the matter in their vicinity so that it begins to glow.
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