Curiouser and curiouser- New discoveries by Material scientists

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[h=2]Curiouser and curiouser[/h][h=3]IN the month of November 2015 alone, materials scientists alerted the media to more than 100 significant discoveries. Here is a small selection from the professional journals:[/h]

• • A type of crystal called a perovskite can be used to make light-emitting diodes that glow exceptionally bright. These could be used in lighting and displays. Hanwei Gao and Biwu Ma of Florida State University. Advanced Materials.
• • Experiments with an exotic form of electronics called “valleytronics”, named after one of the ways in which electrons can move through a semiconductor, shows that the technology might be used to make ultra-low-power computers. Seigo Tarucha and colleagues at the University of Tokyo. Nature Physics.
• • Quantum dots made from nanoparticles of iron pyrite, commonly known as fool’s gold, could help batteries charge up much faster. Cary Pint, Anna Douglas and colleagues at Vanderbilt University, Nashville. ACS Nano.
• • Biosensors made from graphene can provide high levels of sensitivity to help speed up the development of new drugs. Aleksey Arsenin and Yury Stebunov of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
• • Materials called microwave absorbers are used to make detection by radar of objects such as stealth fighters more difficult. A new lightweight material with arrays of patterned conductors would greatly improve cloaking properties. Wenhua Xu and colleagues of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China. Journal of Applied Physics.
• • A new class of “porous liquid”, which features permanent holes at the molecular level, could provide a number of practical applications, including capturing carbon-dioxide emissions from factories. Stuart James and colleagues at Queen’s University Belfast. Nature.
• • Voltage-sensitive nanomaterials could be inserted into human tissue to gather information about how the brain functions and help diagnose injury and disease. James Delehanty and colleagues at the US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC. NANO Letters

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