Materials Science

In material science, it is difficult to engineer a material that is both highly stiff and tough. In the past, scientists have increased the stiffness of soft polymers by adding nano-sized particles of stiff materials (e.g. carbon nanotubes, silica), but…

IBM scientists use microscopy methods to create an “impossible” carbon molecule, triangulene. Triangulene is made of 6 carbon rings with two unpaired electrons roaming about. While triangulene has not been fully characterized at this point, the unpaired…

The patterns seen here are called interference rings, or Newton’s rings, and are generated when light waves reflect off of two glass surfaces that are in very close proximity to each other, such as a glass microscope slide and a cover slip. Imperfections…

By Andrew Wong, a second year graduate student in the Applied Physics program at Harvard University.       The increase in global energy demand and subsequent carbon dioxide emissions has driven advancements in renewable energy generation technologies…

A 5000x magnification view of diatoms, a type of tiny algae. (Credit: from Jim Mikulak (The English Wikipedia) via Wikimedia Commons.) Scientists at Zhejiang University have recently published an improved method for removing arsenic from drinking water,…

What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘green technology’? Do solar panels, wind turbines, and electric cars come to mind? What about light-emitting diodes (LEDs)? Unlike many costly green technologies, LEDs are accessible to the majority of…

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical compound that has been used in the production of plastics, including cell phones, contact lenses, and food storage containers, for over 50 years. Scientists have recently shown that the BPA found on cash register receipts…

Two groups of researchers have recently reported a new light-powered method in which readily available chemical building blocks are coupled to produce useful complex molecules that cannot be easily found or made. Because these metal-catalyzed reactions…

3D printer making a small building. Image credit: Tiia Monto, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3D_printer2.jpg In recent years, 3D printing has drawn a lot of attention to itself with breakthroughs in various industrial applications.  Given the…

Microscopy images above show two model diatom species: Thalassiosira pseudonana (left) and Phaeodactylum tricornutum (right). If you live in Boston, nanofactories of sophistication well beyond anything the human race has come up with are just a Charles…