Materials Science
High-strength material advancements may lead to life-saving steel
November 5, 2012 12:45 pm | News | CommentsA group of researchers at Wayne State University have been working to create advanced materials with high-yield strength, fracture toughness and ductility. Their efforts have led to the development of a new material consisting of bainitic steels and austempered ductile iron that has all these characteristics, ultimately resisting fatigue that can cause fractures in materials often with catastrophic consequences.
World record set for entanglement of twisted light quanta
November 5, 2012 10:26 am | News | CommentsAfter developing a new method for entangling single photons which gyrate in opposite directions, a research team in Austria reached a new milestone in quantum physics. The scientists were able to generate and measure the entanglement of the largest quantum numbers to date. This result is a first step towards entangling and twisting even macroscopic, spatially separated objects in two different directions.
Team boosts silicon-based batteries
November 5, 2012 9:24 am | News | CommentsResearchers at Rice University have refined silicon-based lithium-ion technology by literally crushing their previous work to make a high-capacity, long-lived, and low-cost anode material with serious commercial potential for rechargeable lithium batteries.
Complex composite study to use MSC Nastran, Marc sim tools
October 30, 2012 4:37 pm | News | CommentsMSC Software Corporation this week announced that Stanford University is using its MSC Nastran and Marc simulation tools to conduct a new study on the testing and analysis of complex composite materials. The goals of the study are to reduce extensive and expensive testing programs, optimize the design of testing configurations and redefine structural deformation and failure processes.
Breakthrough produces dense carbon nanotube chip
October 30, 2012 2:29 pm | News | CommentsAt IBM, scientists have for the first time precisely placed and tested more than 10,000 carbon nanotube devices in a single chip using mainstream manufacturing processes. Achieved through conventional chemistry, materials, and wafer fabrication methods, the invention helps validate the used of carbon nanotube technology for future electronic circuit design.
Cocktail achieves superconducting boost
October 30, 2012 1:59 pm | News | CommentsScientists have recently developed a high-performance superconducting material by mixing iron and selenium in a new chemistry. Although this class of superconductors has already existed, the new material is the first to break the 44 Kelvin barrier. It also shows that iron-selenium superconductors can be successfully synthesized to a high degree of purity.
The hunt for electron holes: A molecular glance on solar water splitting
October 30, 2012 1:18 pm | News | CommentsHydrogen production by solar water splitting in photoelectrochemical cells (PEC) has long been considered the holy grail of sustainable energy research. Iron oxide is a promising electrode material, and now an international team of researchers gained in-depth insights into the electronic structure of an iron oxide electrode, while it was in operation. This opens up new possibilities for an affordable hydrogen production from solar energy.
Carbon nanotube films show promise for touchscreens
October 29, 2012 10:44 am | by Mike Williams, Rice University | News | CommentsA Rice University team has hit upon a method to produce nearly transparent films of electrically conductive carbon nanotubes. Slides dipped into a solution of pure nanotubes in chlorosulfonic acid, the researchers found, left them with an even coat of nanotubes that, after further processing, had none of the disadvantages seen with other methods. The films may be suitable for flexible electronic displays and touchscreens.
Research on nanocrystals to move from lab to market
October 29, 2012 10:33 am | by Iqbal Pittalwala | News | CommentsThe University of California, Riverside has granted an exclusive license to The Idea Zoo, Inc., to commercialize nanotechnology research developed in the lab of Yadong Yin, an associate professor of chemistry. The Idea Zoo was granted exclusive rights to seven patents that cover various aspects of advanced superparamagnetic colloidal nanocrystals. Specifically, the patents focus on magnetically tunable photonic crystals and the ability to commercialize them.
Fragile forests of nanotubes strengthened for MEMS applications
October 29, 2012 10:00 am | News | CommentsConventional microelectromechanical systems tend to be made out of silicon-based materials familiar to the micro-electronics industry, but this ignores a suite of useful materials such as other semiconductors, ceramics, and metals. By using a variety of materials not commonly associated with MEMS technology, a team from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, has created stronger microstructures that can form precise, tall and narrow 3D shapes.
Glass, characterized with precision and efficiency
October 26, 2012 1:54 pm | News | CommentsGlass can possess a quite diverse array of characteristics, depending on what ingredients one uses to modify it. A new process developed at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany now makes the analysis of glass characteristics up to five times faster than previous methods, and uses only 20% of the material. This system consists of an oven and a CMOS camera that enables researchers to observe the glass during the entire heating process.
Study is first to observe oscillatory cracking behavior of materials
October 25, 2012 3:08 pm | by Anne Ju, Cornell University | News | Comments"Avalanches"—the crackling behavior of materials under slowly increasing stress, like crumpling paper or earthquakes—may have a novel facet previously unknown, say Cornell University researchers. Their study employs both theory and experiment to describe never-before-seen oscillatory behavior of microcrystal plastic bursts at very small scales, under highly controlled conditions.
Electron “sniper” targets graphene
October 25, 2012 1:45 pm | by Pete Wilton, Oxford University | News | CommentsOne of the keys to exploiting graphene's potential is being able to create atomic-scale defects as these influence its electrical, chemical, magnetic, and mechanical properties. A team of materials experts have recently report a new approach to engineering graphene's atomic structure with unprecedented spatial precision.
Obstinate electrons “ignore” assumptions and follow another path
October 25, 2012 10:36 am | News | CommentsIt is possible to make gold wires so thin that there is not even enough room for electrons to pass one another. But exactly what path do the electrons take? Measurements made by researchers have found that the electrons do not move through the nanowires themselves, but through the “troughs” between them.
Reclaiming rare earths
October 25, 2012 8:59 am | News | CommentsThe prices for rare earths increased ten-fold between 2009 and 2011, prompting researchers at Ames Laboratory to revisit a rare earth recovery process once employed to make high-strength alloy. Now, they are working to more effectively remove neodymium, a rare earth element, from the mix of other materials in a rare earth magnet.
Team finds Midas touch, changes the color of gold
October 24, 2012 12:20 pm | News | CommentsA University of Southampton team have discovered that by embossing tiny raised or indented patterns onto the metal’s surface they can change the way it absorbs and reflects light—ensuring our eyes don’t see it as “golden” in color at all. Equally applicable to other metals such as silver and aluminium, this breakthrough opens up the prospect of coloring metals without having to coat or chemically treat them.
High-pressure science gets super-sized
October 24, 2012 7:47 am | News | CommentsThe study of materials at extreme conditions took a giant leap forward with the discovery of a way to generate super high pressures without using shock waves whose accompanying heat turns solids to liquid. This discovery will allow scientists, for the first time, to reach static pressure levels exceeding four million atmospheres, a high-pressure environment where new compounds could be formed, materials change their chemical and physical properties, and metals become insulators.
Tiny pores in graphene could give rise to membranes
October 23, 2012 12:22 pm | by Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office | News | CommentsMuch has been made of graphene’s exceptional qualities, particularly its phenomenal strength and impermeability. But the material may not be as impenetrable as scientists have thought. Recent analysis shows that the material bears intrinsic defects, or holes in its atom-sized armor. Experiments demonstrate small molecules like salts can pass easily through a graphene membrane’s tiny pores, while larger molecules were unable to penetrate.
Neutron experiments give unprecedented look at quantum oscillations
October 23, 2012 12:03 pm | News | CommentsResearchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found that nitrogen atoms in the compound uranium nitride exhibit unexpected, distinct vibrations that form a nearly ideal realization of a physics textbook model known as the isotropic quantum harmonic oscillator.
Researchers build spin-polarized contacts on silicon
October 23, 2012 9:56 am | News | CommentsNaval Research Laboratory scientists have demonstrated that graphene can serve as a low resistance spin-polarized tunnel barrier contact which successfully enables spin injection/detection in silicon from a ferromagnetic metal. The graphene provides a highly uniform, chemically inert and thermally robust tunnel barrier free of defects and trap states which plague oxide barriers.
New finding could pave way to faster, smaller electronics
October 23, 2012 8:00 am | News | CommentsUniversity of California, Davis researchers, for the first time, have looked inside gallium manganese arsenide, a type of material known as a "dilute magnetic semiconductor" that could open up an entirely new class of faster, smaller devices based on an emerging field known as spintronics.
Method to improve electric field intensity could boost Raman scattering
October 22, 2012 1:23 pm | News | CommentsSurface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a sensitive technique used for the detection of trace amounts of chemicals. It is also one of the most promising for the nonlinear optical study of nanostructures. Researchers in China have identified a way to increase the sensitivity of this method by enhance local electrical fields around these structures. Single-molecule detection may be feasible.
A better way to shed water
October 22, 2012 7:43 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsCondensers are a crucial part of today's power generation systems: About 80% of all the world's power plants use them to turn steam back to water after it comes out of the turbines that turn generators. They are also a key element in desalination plants. Now, a new surface architecture designed by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology holds the promise of boosting the performance of such condensers.
Chemists pioneer new technique for nanostructure assembly
October 19, 2012 8:51 am | by Donna Hesterman, University of Florida | News | CommentsEngineered nanostructures are typically challenging to create with any sort of sophisticated. However, a new technique for growing new materials from nanorods has been developed the could represent a major breakthrough in the field. It shows how thermodynamic forces can be used to manipulate growth of nanoparticles.
Complex 3D metallic structures manufactured at the nanoscale
October 18, 2012 11:58 am | News | CommentsBy combining ion processing and nanolithography, scientists from Aalto University in Finland and the University of Washington have managed to create complex 3D structures at nanoscale. The breakthrough was made while studying the irregular folding of metallic thin films after they were processed by reactive ion etching. After determining the cause, the researchers realized they could control the bending activity with an ion beam.
