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“Approximately 200,000 times thinner than human hair.”

New energy-efficient devices are made possible by the thinnest ferroelectric material ever created, thanks to the University of California Berkeley and Argonne National Laboratory.

As a result of this development, intriguing material behavior at small scales could reduce energy demands for computing, revealed ANL.

This work studies how a lattice of tunable beams can learn desired behaviors and what factors affect mechanical learning.

Bouncy castle inspires inventor to develop a method for constructing inflatable concrete homes.

Company delivers 15-minute inflatables to building sites and then pumps concrete into them to produce a building in one hour.

The shells of some mollusk species have compact helical structures that researchers propose develop from the self-assembly of a liquid-crystalline material.

New structures maintain the properties of high-pressure materials outside the high-pressure vessels in which they were formed.

Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University.

The innovative materials, known as thermoformable ceramics, were created by “accident” in a lab but had potential applications, including more effective and long-lasting heat sinks.

Materials known as metal-organic frameworks hold promise for advances in healthcare, energy and other areas, researchers say.

Inspired by living things, the unique material is 10 times as durable as natural rubber.

For the first time, researchers use only light and a catalyst to change properties such as hardness and elasticity in molecules of the same type, according to a new study published October 13 in Science.

The ability to control the physical properties of a material using light as a trigger is potentially transformative.

Continue reading “Researchers create material that transforms from soft to hard when exposed to light” »

Textile engineers have developed a fabric woven out of ultra-fine nano-threads made in part of phase-change materials and other advanced substances that combine to produce a fabric that can respond to changing temperatures to heat up and cool down its wearer depending on need.

Materials scientists have designed an advanced textile with nano-scale threads containing in their core a phase-change material that can store and release large amounts of heat when the material changes phase from liquid to solid. Combining the threads with electrothermal and photothermal coatings that enhance the effect, they have in essence developed a fabric that can both quickly cool the wearer down and warm them up as conditions change.

A paper describing the manufacturing technique appeared in ACS Nano on August 10.