Materials & Manufacturing

Making High-Performance Parts Inexpensive and Durable

Idaho National Laboratory has developed world-class capabilities to help industry design efficient SPS manufacturing processes. The lab’s newest addition makes it possible to manufacture new materials at industrially relevant scales.

Using 3D Printing to Strengthen Jet Engines

Skoltech engineers have used a 3D printer to fabricate — and investigate the mechanical characteristics of — samples of bronze-steel alloys previously unknown to materials science.

Multi-Material Digital Light Processing 3D Printing

Researchers from Japan and Singapore have developed a new 3D-printing process for the fabrication of 3D metal–plastic composite structures with complex shapes.

Revolutionizing High-Performance Computer Memory Storage

Magnets generate invisible fields that attract certain materials. Far more important to our everyday lives, magnets also can store data in computers. Exploiting the direction of the magnetic field, microscopic bar magnets each can store one bit of memory as a zero or a one — the language of computers.

Solid-State Thermal Transistor

A research team at Hokkaido University has developed the first solid-state electrochemical thermal transistor. It's more stable than, and just as effective as, current liquid-state thermal transistors.

Cohesive Circuit Protection for Wearable Electronics

The cellulose nanofiber coating counters bending damage and retains electrode function under water.

Flow-Through Transducer for Wind Tunnel Analysis

To enable key aerospace R&D applications, NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a single-piece flow-through transducer design capable of measuring all six components adding in the Axial force measurement.

Extractor for Chemical Analysis of Lipid Biomarkers in Regolith (ExCALiBR)

NASA Ames Research Center has developed a novel technology that provides an autonomous, miniaturized fluidic system for lipid analysis.

Hydrodynamic Effect Helps Motorized Objects Navigate Inclines

The tiny motors mimic how rock climbers navigate inclines.

Designing Shock-Mitigating Seats for Boat Operators

Products for nautical applications face an unusual set of design challenges. The corrosiveness of salt water can cause premature degradation, and the impact of fast-moving vessels bouncing up against forceful ocean waves can also damage equipment.

Battle for the Box

Whether you call them packs, boxes, or trays, the structures that envelop and protect EV battery cells and their supporting electrical and thermal-management hardware are among the industry's top subsystem priorities.

New Polymer Coating Could Boost EV Batteries

Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a conductive polymer coating – called HOS-PFM – that could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

Oxygen-Ion Battery: A Solution for Large Energy Storage Systems

TU Wien has developed an oxygen-ion battery that has some important advantages. Although it does not allow for quite as high energy densities as the Li-ion battery, its storage capacity does not decrease irrevocably over time.

Increased Storage Capacity in Water-Based Batteries

Researchers at Texas A&M University have discovered a 1,000 percent difference in the storage capacity of metal-free, water-based battery electrodes.

Controlling Electric Double Layer Dynamics for All-Solid-State Batteries

Researchers have employed a novel technique to investigate and modulate electric double layer dynamics at the solid/solid electrolyte interface.

Key Design Considerations for Automated Production of EV Batteries

Examining an EV battery degassing automated cell that is widely installed across the industry exemplifies many design features.

Enabling Ambitious Battery Production at Scale

The battery industry is forecasted to grow tenfold by the end of the decade. This growth is driven by increasing demand for Li-ion cell batteries, predominantly for electrified transportation and energy storage.

Trial, Error, Repeat

When you're working to develop something new, something really innovative, you're going to fail — over and over. The difference between finally succeeding, or not, is whether you keep on going anyway, so you can learn something new from each failure.

Self-Folding Origami Machines Powered by Chemical Reaction

A Cornell-led collaboration harnessed chemical reactions to make microscale origami machines self-fold — freeing them from the liquids in which they usually function, so they can...

New Transfer Process Moves 2D Materials from Growth Substrate to Device Substrate

Purdue University engineers have developed a patent-pending tool to make the manufacture of ultrathin semiconductors more consistent, controllable, and...

The History of Mars Missions

The Red Planet continues to fascinate future space explorers — engineers who have been developing landers and rovers for Mars exploration. Test your knowledge of the successful missions to Mars launched by the U.S.

3D Printing a Mini Vacuum Pump

The technology would be pivotal in a portable mass spectrometer that could help monitor pollutants, perform medical diagnoses in remote areas, or even test Martian soil.

How Much Do You Know About the History of Digital Twins?

How much do you know about the history of digital twins? Find out with this quiz.

Tiny Biobattery With 100-Year Shelf Life Runs on Bacteria

Last fall, Binghamton University professor Seokheun “Sean” Choi and his Bioelectronics and Microsystems Laboratory published their research into an ingestible biobattery...

Perovskite Solar Cells — From the Lab to the Manufacturing Floor

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) has announced that a team of researchers, led by MIT and including the University of California San...

Light-Based Computing Scheme Reduces Power Needed to Mine Cryptocurrencies

Researchers have developed a new light-based computing scheme that uses a photonic integrated circuit to reduce the energy necessary for cryptocurrency and...

5Ws of a Smart Bandage

A new kind of smart bandage developed at Caltech may make treatment of chronic wounds easier, more effective, and less expensive.