Materials

A Self-Healing Structural Composite

Jason Patrick, assistant professor of civil, construction, and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University, and his team have developed a new composite material for applications like airplane wings and wind turbine blades in which hidden defects and damage can self-heal.

Electromagnetic-Wave-Absorbing 6G Tech

The epsilon iron oxide nanoparticles could be continuously produced through a micrometer-sized powder manufacturing process.

Low-Cost, High-Energy Battery Could Change the Decarbonization Game

The battery was made using sodium-sulphur — a type of molten salt that can be processed from sea water at a low cost.

Leveraging Metal 3D Printing for Manufacturing in Space

One promising metal-based additive technology for in-space 3D printing is Ultrasonic Additive Manufacturing (UAM). Instead of fusing metal powders, UAM welds foil at (near) room temperature.

Self-Folding Origami Honeycombs Perfect for Protective Packaging

A research team has demonstrated a promising method to easily manufacture self-folding origami honeycomb structures.

Giant Batteries Deliver Renewable Energy When It’s Needed

In developing its flow battery, Oregon-based ESS drew from groundbreaking research and development conducted by NASA more than 40 years ago.

5 Ws of Painless Tattoos

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed low-cost, painless, and bloodless tattoos that can be self-administered and have many applications.

How Well Do You Know E-Skin?

How much do you know about e-skin? Find out with the quiz below.

High-Bandwidth Communications Device

This device could pave the way to higher-bandwidth wireless communications.

Soft, Mechanical Metamaterials

Researchers produced a soft, mechanical metamaterial that can “think” about how forces are applied to it and respond via programmed reactions.

Shape-Shifting Materials Offer Infinite Possibilities

Researchers have developed a shape-shifting material that can take and hold any possible shape.

Self-Healing Aluminum Metal Matrix Composite

NASA has developed a new metal matrix composite (MMC) that can repair itself from large fatigue cracks that occur during the service life of a structure.

3D-Printed Insect-Inspired Robots

Instead of adding soft materials to a rigid robot body, researchers have taken a soft body and added rigid features to key components.

AI that Mimics the Human Eye

Researchers at University of Central Florida have developed an artificial intelligence device that mimics the retina of the eye.

3D-Printed Catalysts Propel Hypersonic Flight

Ultra-efficient catalysts were developed that are cost-effective to make and simple to scale.

Fine-Tuning the Factory Using Simulation

One promising way to meet modern industrial challenges is by using additive manufacturing processes.

Proposed Standards and Methods for Leak Testing Lithium-Ion Battery Packs

Battery packs, whether made of prismatic, cylindrical, or pouch cells, are cooled by common automotive thermal management systems.

Graphene Boosts Flexible and Wearable Electronics Boosts

At 200 times stronger than steel, graphene has been hailed as a super material of the future since its discovery in 2004. The ultrathin carbon material is an incredibly strong...

New Material Will Make Locally Flexible Diodes Possible

Diodes allow directed flows of current. Without them, modern electronics would be inconceivable. Until now, they had to be made from two materials with different characteristics. A...

Novel Nanowire Fabrication Technique Paves Way for Next Generation Spintronics

The challenge of fabricating nanowires directly on silicon substrates for the creation of the next generation of electronics has finally been solved by...

NYU Tandon Researchers Explore a More Frictionless Future

Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Elisa Riedo and her team have discovered a fundamental friction law that is leading to a deeper understanding of energy dissipation...

AI Material That Adapts to Its Surroundings

UCLA engineers have designed a new class of material that can learn behaviors over time and develop a “muscle memory” of its own.

An Automatic Drawing Machine for Metamaterials

The drawing machine uses pens with ink containing conductive material or regular mechanical pencils with varying graphite content.

Heat-Proof Carbides May Revolutionize Aerospace Technology

The new materials are hard enough to stir molten steel and can withstand temperatures above 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit — about the same temperatures found just a few hundred miles above the surface of the sun.

World's Smallest Photon Achieved in Dielectric Nanocavity

Until recently, it was widely believed among physicists that it was impossible to compress light below the so-called diffraction limit, except when using metal nanoparticles, which...

UV-to-Red-Light Converting Films Accelerate Plant Growth

An interdisciplinary team from Hokkaido University’s Engineering and Agriculture departments and the Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery (WPI-ICReDD) has developed...