News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have shed new light on a scientific mystery regarding the atomic-level mechanism of the sulfur embrittlement of nickel, a classic problem that has puzzled the scientific community for nearly a century. The discovery also enriches fundamental understanding of general grain boundaries that often control the mechanical and physical properties of polycrystalline materials.

The international team of scientist of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU), Leibniz University Hannover (Leibniz Universität Hannover) and the Ioffe Institute found a way to improve nanocomposite material which opens new opportunities to use it in hydrogen economy and other industries. The study is dedicated to the composite material, a semiconductor based on titanium dioxide. Its applications are widely studied by the researchers all over the world.

Researchers at Purdue University and the University of Virginia have developed a new fabrication method that makes tiny, thin-film electronic circuits peelable from a surface. The technique not only eliminates several manufacturing steps and the associated costs, but also allows any object to sense its environment or be controlled through the application of a high-tech sticker.

Defects are often observed when making borophene, the single-atom form of boron, but unlike in other two-dimensional materials, these mismatched lattices can assemble into ordered structures that preserve the material's metallic nature and electronic properties. Labs at Rice and Northwestern universities made the first detailed analysis of borophene defects.

Researchers led by a University of California San Diego team have published work in the journal Nature Energy that explains what's causing the performance-reducing 'voltage fade' that currently plagues a promising class of cathode materials called Lithium-rich NMC (nickel magnesium cobalt) layered oxides.

ASU professor Hao Yan and his colleagues have designed a range of nanostructures resembling marine diatoms -- tiny unicellular creatures. To achieve this, they borrow techniques used by naturally-occurring diatoms to deposit layers of silica -- the primary constituent in glass -- in order to grow their intricate shells. Using a technique known as DNA origami, the group designed nanoscale platforms of various shapes to which particles of silica, drawn by electrical charge, could stick.

Dr. LI Jiafang, from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has recently formed an international team to apply kirigami techniques to advanced 3D nanofabrication.

Researchers at the US Army Research Laboratory and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University developed a new technique to quickly teach robots novel traversal behaviors with minimal human oversight.