Materials Science
Novel materials shake ship scum
January 31, 2013 9:46 am | News | CommentsJust as horses shake off pesky flies by twitching their skin, ships may soon be able to shed the unwanted accumulation of bacteria and other marine growth with the flick of a switch. Duke University engineers have developed a material that can be applied like paint to the hull of a ship and will literally be able to dislodge bacteria, keeping it from accumulating on the ship's surface.
New options for transparent contact electrodes
January 29, 2013 10:29 am | News | CommentsFound in flat screens, solar modules, or in new organic light-emitting diode (LED) displays, transparent electrodes have become ubiquitous. But since raw materials like indium are becoming more and more costly, researchers have begun to look elsewhere for alternatives. A new review article sheds some light on the different advantages and disadvantages of established and new materials for use in these kinds of contact electrodes.
Physicists achieve high-energy acceleration of neutral atoms
January 28, 2013 5:43 pm | News | CommentsParticle accelerators normally operate on the principle that charged particles like electrons and protons require high voltages and long acceleration paths. Researchers in India have developed a method that uses lasers to charge a lump of cooled argon particles to high energy and revert them to a neutral, uncharged, state without losing any of the high energy possessed by the particle. The finding could yield a valuable new source of particles for study.
Bioinspired fibers change color when stretched
January 28, 2013 4:31 pm | News | CommentsA team of materials scientists at Harvard University and the University of Exeter have invented a new fiber that changes color when stretched. Inspired by nature, the researchers identified and replicated the unique structural elements that create the bright iridescent blue color of a tropical plant's fruit.
Magnetic nanovehicles control, target drug release in the body
January 28, 2013 10:57 am | News | CommentsResearchers in Switzerland have designed tiny vessels that are capable of releasing active agents in the body. These “nanovehicles” are made from a liposome just 100 to 200 nm in diameter. By attaching magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles to the surface, scientists are able to target the vessel, heating it up to release the drug.
Scientists unravel the mysteries of spider silk
January 28, 2013 8:22 am | News | CommentsScientists at Arizona State University are celebrating their recent success on the path to understanding what makes the fiber that spiders spin—weight for weight—at least five times as strong as piano wire. They have found a way to obtain a wide variety of elastic properties of the silk of several intact spiders' webs using a sophisticated but non–invasive laser light scattering technique.
EU science projects win up to billion euros each
January 28, 2013 8:16 am | News | CommentsTwo science projects—one to map the human brain, the other to explore the extraordinary properties of the carbon-based material graphene—were declared the winners Monday of an EU technologies contest and will receive up to €1 billion ($1.35 billion) each over the next 10 years.
A safer way to vaccinate
January 28, 2013 7:43 am | by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office | News | CommentsMassachusetts Institute of Technology researchers describe a new type of vaccine-delivery film that holds promise for improving the effectiveness of DNA vaccines. If such vaccines could be successfully delivered to humans, they could overcome not only the safety risks of using viruses to vaccinate against diseases such as HIV, but they would also be more stable, making it possible to ship and store them at room temperature.
Scientists confirm surprisingly small proton radius
January 25, 2013 11:17 am | by Olivia Meyer-Streng, Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics | News | CommentsUsing laser spectroscopy to examine an exotic form of hydrogen, which has a negatively charged muon instead of an electron, physicists at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland have for the first time determined the magnetic radius of the proton. The result significantly different than the one from previous investigations of regular hydrogen.
Liquid metal makes silicon crystals at record low temperatures
January 25, 2013 7:35 am | News | CommentsA new way of making crystalline silicon, developed by University of Michigan researchers, could make this crucial ingredient of computers and solar cells much cheaper and greener. The researchers discovered a way to make silicon crystals, directly at just 180 F, the internal temperature of a cooked turkey, by taking advantage of a phenomenon seen in your kitchen.
Liquid crystal’s chaotic inner dynamics
January 24, 2013 4:08 pm | News | CommentsPhysicists have recently demonstrated that the application of a very strong alternating electric field to thin liquid crystal cells leads to a new distinct nonlinear dynamic effect in the response of the cells. Researchers were able to explain this result through spatio-temporal chaos theory. The finding has implications for the operation of liquid crystal devices because their operation depends on electro-optic switch phenomena.
Organic ferroelectric molecule shows promise for memory chips
January 24, 2013 2:31 pm | News | CommentsAt the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information's ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware. A team led by the University of Washington and the Southeast University discovered a molecule that shows promise as an organic alternative to today's silicon-based semiconductors.
Exotic chemical compound could be useful in batteries
January 24, 2013 2:08 pm | News | CommentsNorthwestern University graduate student Jonathan Barnes had a hunch for creating an exotic new chemical compound, and his idea that the force of love is stronger than hate proved correct. He and his colleagues are the first to permanently interlock two identical tetracationic rings that normally are repelled by each other. Many experts had said it couldn't be done.
New antimicrobial hydrogels fight superbugs and drug-resistant biofilms
January 24, 2013 8:20 am | News | CommentsBacterial biofilms, which diseased groupings of cells found in 80% of infections, are a significant health hazard and one of the biggest headaches for hospitals and their constant battle against disease. Researchers from IBM, with the help of scientists in Singapore, revealed today a synthetic antimicrobial hydrogel that can break through diseased biofilms and completely eradicate drug-resistant bacteria upon contact. It is the first hydrogel to be biodegradable, biocompatible, and non-toxic.
Research paves way for larger, safer lithium-ion batteries
January 24, 2013 7:45 am | News | CommentsLooking toward improved batteries for charging electric cars and storing energy from renewable but intermittent solar and wind, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed the first high-performance, nanostructured solid electrolyte for more energy-dense lithium-ion batteries.
Sensors from a spray can: Organic materials increase camera sensitivity
January 23, 2013 5:41 pm | News | CommentsResearchers in Germany have developed a new generation of image sensors that are more sensitive to light than the conventional silicon versions. Simple and cheap to produce, they consist of electrically conductive plastics which are sprayed onto the sensor surface in an ultra-thin layer. The chemical composition of the polymer spray coating can be altered so that even the invisible range of the light spectrum can be captured.
Self-assembling silica microwires may enable integrated optical devices
January 23, 2013 10:23 am | News | CommentsSilica microwires are the tiny and as-yet underutilized cousins of optical fibers. If precisely manufactured, however, these hair-like slivers of silica could enable applications and technology not currently possible with comparatively bulky optical fiber. By carefully controlling the shape of water droplets with an ultraviolet laser, a team of researchers from Australia and France has found a way to coax silica nanoparticles to self-assemble into much more highly uniform silica wires.
Bisphenol A substitute could spell trouble
January 23, 2013 8:35 am | News | CommentsIn the same week that a team of researchers in France announced the harmful effects of bisphenol A (BPA) on hormone levels in human tissue, researchers in Texas have demonstrated through experiments that the BPA substitute bisphenol S also disrupts hormone activity at an extremely low level of exposure, and in an even more problematic way.
Researchers create self-healing, stretchable wires using liquid metal
January 23, 2013 8:20 am | News | CommentsResearchers from North Carolina State University have developed elastic, self-healing wires in which both the liquid-metal core and the polymer sheath reconnect at the molecular level after being severed.
Nanosponge filters out herbicide poisons
January 21, 2013 8:19 am | News | CommentsNew research has demonstrated the potential of a new kind of nanomaterial to filter out environmental toxins in water. A team of researchers has developed a highly porous metal organic framework (MOF) that, almost uniquely, is stable and able to filter substances in water. This study is one of the first to demonstrate MOFs separation applications in an aqueous environment.
Rare earth metals make water-repellent surfaces that last
January 21, 2013 8:01 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsWater-shedding surfaces that are robust in harsh environments could have broad applications in many industries. Hydrophobic materials can greatly enhance the efficiency of this process. But these materials have one major problem: Most employ thin polymer coatings that degrade when heated, and can easily be destroyed by wear. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have now come up with a new class of hydrophobic ceramics that can overcome these problems.
Quantitative magneto-mechanical made possible by the Barkhausen Effect
January 17, 2013 9:45 pm | News | CommentsThe Barkhausen Effect is the noise in the magnetic output of a ferromagnet when the magnetizing force applied to it is changed. Almost 100 years after its initial discovery, a team of scientists in Alberta have harnessed this effect as a new kind of high-resolution microscopy for the insides of magnetic materials.
Self-assembled “soft Legos” create complex crystal shapes
January 17, 2013 12:24 pm | News | CommentsA team of researchers in Austria has shown that so-called block copolymer stars—polymers that consist of two different blocks and are chemically anchored on a common point—have a robust and flexible architecture and they possess the ability to self-assemble at different levels. The team has called their invention, which can form complex crystal diamonds or cubes, the “soft Lego”.
RABiTS technology enables record-setting performance
January 17, 2013 7:57 am | News | CommentsA technology invented at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for manufacturing copper-oxide-based high-temperature superconducting materials has been used to make an iron-based superconducting wire capable of carrying very high electrical currents under exceptionally high magnetic fields.
New surfaces repel most known liquids
January 16, 2013 1:18 pm | News | CommentsIn an advance toward stain-proof, spill-proof clothing, protective garments and other products that shrug off virtually every liquid—from blood and ketchup to concentrated acids—scientists are reporting development of new "superomniphobic" surfaces. These new surfaces display extreme repellency to two families of liquids: Newtonian and non-Newtonian.
