Basic science

Ceramic armor development: New predictive formula offers facile estimation of system’s ballistic efficacy

By Lisa McDonald / August 9, 2024

Ceramic armor development is constrained by limitations of existing predictive models. In a recent open-access article, Jake Ganor of Adept Armor proposed a new predictive formula that opens an avenue for facile estimation of a ceramic material’s ballistic efficacy.

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Deep-sea mining considerations: Polymetallic nodules may play role in ‘dark’ oxygen production

By Lisa McDonald / July 31, 2024

Much remains unknown about deep-sea ecosystems. In a recent open-access paper, an international team of researchers propose a preliminary hypothesis that polymetallic nodules may play a role in deep-sea oxygen production. If confirmed upon further investigation, this discovery would have implications for deep-sea mining activities.

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Stretching the limits of auxetic expansion: Tungsten semicarbide nanosheets set new record

By Guest Contributor / July 23, 2024

In a new record for auxetic materials, researchers at the University of Western Ontario synthesized 2D flakes of tungsten semicarbide than can expand up to 40% under applied strain.

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Circumventing insufficient slip systems: Near-surface dislocation mechanisms allow room-temperature deformation of polycrystalline ceramics

By Lisa McDonald / June 28, 2024

Plastic deformation of polycrystalline ceramics at room temperature is hindered by the lack of sufficient independent slip systems within the material’s structure. Researchers in Germany circumvented this limitation by focusing on deformation in the near-surface region, which demonstrates several useful dislocation mechanisms not available in the bulk region.

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Semi-automatic annotation of materials science text accelerates data extraction from literature

By Lisa McDonald / May 24, 2024

The emergence of large language models has the potential to greatly accelerate data extraction from materials science literature, but annotating the text before extraction is often still a manual task. Researchers led by Taylor Sparks at the University of Utah developed a new method that harnesses the power of Google’s Gemini Pro to reduce the need for manual annotation.

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Smart glass, simple design: Ferroelectric tungsten trioxide allows for single-layer color-changing display

By Lisa McDonald / May 3, 2024

Optical devices traditionally require numerous layers to guide and transform light to achieve the desired result. Researchers at The Ohio State University showed that only a single layer of epsilon-phase tungsten trioxide, which they just experimentally confirmed is ferroelectric, can be used to create color-changing smart windows.

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Uncovering nature’s secrets—researchers identify first naturally occurring mineral to display unconventional superconductivity

By Lisa McDonald / March 22, 2024

Materials that can display superconductivity are extremely rare in nature, and to date, no naturally occurring mineral was known to display unconventional superconductivity. Researchers led by Ames National Laboratory discovered that miassite, which previously was identified as a superconductor, actually displays unconventional superconductivity.

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Twisted-layer structure allows bulk boron nitride ceramics to plastically deform

By Lisa McDonald / March 1, 2024

Successful plastic deformation of nitride ceramics has to date been limited to samples on the micro and nanoscale. Now, researchers from Yanshan University in China achieved plastic deformation in a bulk boron nitride ceramic by modifying its layered van der Waals structure.

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EMA 2024 debuts in Denver

By Amanda Engen / February 28, 2024

The Electronic Materials and Applications Conference moved from its original home in Florida to Denver, Colo., taking place Feb. 13–16, 2024. More than 330 attendees, of which nearly a third were students, attended the conference.

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Stabilizing perovskite solar cells—researchers decouple the synergistic role of water and oxygen in degradation

By Lisa McDonald / February 20, 2024

Achieving long-term operational stability of all-perovskite solar cells remains a challenge. Researchers led by Georgia Institute of Technology made the surprising discovery that while exposing perovskites to both water and oxygen leads to instability, taking away one of those factors preserved the perovskites’ structure.

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