Materials

Groundbreaking Study in Light Control Opens Door to New Technological Frontiers

Scientists at Heriot‑Watt University have demonstrated in a world-first, that light can be used to control every aspect of how electromagnetic waves...

Test Your Knowledge About Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Here is a five-question quiz to see how much you know about fuel cells. Take now!

Aerospace Materials & Manufacturing Digital Summit 2026

While aluminum and aluminum alloys, steel, titanium alloys, and fiber-reinforced composites continue to dominate the aerospace materials and manufacturing industry, advanced materials such...

How Electroadhesion Can Hold Materials Together

Is there a way to stick hard and soft materials together without any tape, glue, or epoxy? A new study published in ACS Central Science shows that applying a small voltage to certain objects forms chemical bonds that securely link the objects together. Read on to learn more.

Optimizing 3D-Printed Helixes as Terahertz Optical Materials

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have optimized and 3D-printed helix structures as optical materials for Terahertz frequencies, a potential way to address a technology gap for next-generation telecommunications, non-destructive evaluation, chemical/biological sensing and more. Read on to learn more.

Giving Magnets the Graphene Treatment

In an article published in Physical Review X, a team in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign showed how to engineer two-dimensional magnetic systems to obey the same equations as mobile electrons in the two-dimensional material graphene. Read on to learn more.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a new material that can use sunlight and water to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide; a novel design for solar-powered data centers that will orbit the Earth and could realistically scale to meet the growing demand for AI computing while reducing the environmental impact of data centers; and more.

A Fully Autonomous Robotic System Measures Key Properties of New Materials

Scientists are striving to discover new semiconductor materials that could boost the efficiency of solar cells and other electronics. But the pace of innovation is bottlenecked by the speed at which researchers can manually measure important material properties. A fully autonomous robotic system developed by MIT researchers could speed things up. Read on to learn more.

Finding Hidden Damage in Cold-Formed Steel with Radar and AI

A University of Houston engineer has developed a method to detect possible damage in concealed cold-formed steel construction framing materials hidden behind walls, without having to tear the walls open. Read on to learn more.

Humidity-Resistant Hydrogen Sensor Can Improve Safety for Large-Scale Clean Energy

It's a challenge that today’s sensors do not work optimally in humid environments. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, are presenting a new sensor that is well suited to humid environments — and actually performs better the more humid it gets. Read on to learn more about it.

Resilient Nylon Device Creates Electricity Under Tons of Pressure

Researchers have developed a flexible nylon-film device that generates electricity from compression and keeps working even after being run over by a car multiple times, opening the door to self-powered sensors on our roads and for other electronic devices. Read on to learn more.

Celebrate 50 Years of Tech Briefs: Share Your Story

In 2026, Tech Briefs is proudly celebrating its 50th Anniversary with a special September issue honoring five decades of innovation — reflecting on the legacy that shaped engineering and...

Soft Robots That Can Walk on Water

Imagine a tiny robot, no bigger than a leaf, gliding across a pond’s surface like a water strider. One day, devices like this could track pollutants, collect water samples, or scout flooded areas too risky for people. Baoxing Xu, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, is pioneering a way to build them. Read on to learn more.

Harvesting Water from Air

Even in arid parts of the world, there is usually moisture in the air. This moisture could provide much-needed water for drinking and irrigation, but extracting water out of air is difficult. A new technology developed by KAUST researchers can consistently extract liters of water out of thin air each day without needing regular manual maintenance. Read on to learn more.

New Electronic “Skin” Could Enable Lightweight Night-Vision Glasses

MIT engineers have developed a technique to grow and peel ultrathin “skins” of electronic material. The method could pave the way for new classes of electronic devices, such as ultrathin wearable sensors, flexible transistors and computing elements, and highly sensitive and compact imaging devices. Read on to learn more.

Energy-Efficient Freshwater Generation System Inspired by Nature

A team of researchers is designing novel systems to capture water vapor in the air and turn it into liquid. University of Waterloo Professor Michael Tam and his Ph.D. students Yi Wang and Weinan Zhao have developed sponges or membranes with a large surface area that continually capture moisture from their surrounding environment. Read on to learn more.

Using Waste to Purify Water

Using waste to purify water may sound counterintuitive. But at TU Wien, this is exactly what has now been achieved: a special nanostructure has been developed to filter a widespread class of harmful dyes from water. Read on to learn more about it.

Artificial Reef Could Protect Marine Life, Reduce Storm Damage

A team at MIT is hoping to fortify coastlines with “architected” reefs — sustainable, offshore structures engineered to mimic the wave-buffering effects of natural reefs while also providing pockets for fish and other marine life. The team’s reef design centers on a cylindrical structure surrounded by four rudder-like slats. Read on to learn more about it.

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including Chalmers University of Technology's new sensor that is well suited to humid environments — and actually performs better the more humid it gets; a new fabrication technique that can produce multifunctional “smart synthetic skin” from a research team at Penn State; and RMIT University researchers' flexible nylon-film device that generates electricity from compression and keeps working even after being run over by a car multiple times.

New Protective Layer Boosts Lithium Metal Battery Performance

The coating toughens the surface of the electrolyte fivefold against fracturing from mechanical pressure. It also makes existing imperfections much less vulnerable to lithium burrowing inside, especially during fast recharging. Read on to learn more.

Anode-Free Battery Doubles Electric Vehicle Driving Range

A joint research team led by Professor Soojin Park and Dr. Dong-Yeob Han of the Department of Chemistry at POSTECH, together with Professor Nam-Soon Choi and Dr. Saehun Kim of KAIST, and Professor Tae Kyung Lee and researcher Junsu Son of Gyeongsang National University, has successfully achieved a volumetric energy density of 1270 Wh/L in an anode-free lithium metal battery. This value is nearly twice that of lithium-ion batteries currently used in electric vehicles, which typically deliver around 650 Wh/L. Read on to learn more.

Supercapacitors That Rival Batteries

In a study published in Nature Communications, a team reveals a new kind of carbon-based material that allows supercapacitors to store as much energy as traditional lead-acid batteries, while delivering power far faster than conventional batteries can manage. Read on to learn more.