Metals
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May 23 | News
Ion bombardment of metal surfaces is an important, but poorly understood, nanomanufacturing technique. New research using sophisticated supercomputer simulations has shown what goes on in trillionths of a second. The advance could lead to better ways to predict the phenomenon and more uses of the technique to make new nanoscale products.
May 22 | News
Electron
microscopes are often used to study fossils, which are first coated in
an ultra-thin layer of gold to help reveal details. However, removing
this layer often involves harsh chemicals like cyanide. Chemists in the
U.K. have developed a new method using ionic liquid to remove the
plating without destroying fossil features.
May 21 | News
If you are not a condensed matter physicist, vanadium oxide may be the coolest material you've never heard of. It's a metal. It's an insulator. It's a window coating and an optical switch. And thanks to a new study by physicists at Rice University, scientists have a new way to reversibly alter vanadium oxide's electronic properties by treating it with one of the simplest substances—hydrogen.
May 21 | News
In
experiments with gamma rays in France, researchers have recently proven
that these extremely high-energy electromagnetic waves can be focused
by lenses like conventional light. This finding that gamma rays can be
refracted overturns a fundamental assumption of theoretical physics.
May 18 | News
University
at Buffalo researchers are making significant progress on rust-proofing
steel using a graphene-based composite that could serve as a nontoxic
alternative to coatings that contain hexavalent chromium, a probable
carcinogen.
May 18 | News
An
international team of researchers has discovered how adding trace
amounts of water can tremendously speed up chemical reactions—such as
hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis—in which hydrogen is one of the
reactants, or starting materials. Previous research had indicated this
phenomenon, but until now the true importance of water to its effect has
eluded chemists.
May 15 | News
Researchers have taken a step toward overcoming a key obstacle in commercializing "hyperbolic metamaterials," structures that could bring optical advances including ultrapowerful microscopes, computers, and solar cells. The researchers have shown how to create the metamaterials without the traditional silver or gold previously required.
May 11 | News
Drawing
on computational tools and scanning transmission electron microscopy, a
team of University of Wisconsin-Madison and Iowa State University
materials experts has examined metallic glasses at the
difficult-to-reach scale of just a few nanometers length. They have
discovered a new nanometer-scale atomic structure that could help
developers fine-tune structures.
May 10 | News
After
studies involving advanced simulations of nanoscale magnetic and
materials phenomena, a team of scientists in Germany have proposed
making use of magnetic moments in chains of iron atoms to allow
information to be transported on the nanoscale in a fast and
energy-efficient manner. The scheme, demonstrated in experiments, would
work over a wide temperature range, remaining largely unaffected by
external magnetic fields.
May 8 | News
Mineral
oil is typically used as a cooling lubricant for machining hard metals
and for tool-making machinery on which tools are manufactured, but
engineers are now offering an alternative to fossil fuel-based oils that
often transport very little heat. The new aqueous biopolymer solutions
are actually based on water, which is no worse a lubricant than oil if
the right additives are used.
