MRS Bulletin Materials News Podcast

Nov 18 2024 102 ep. 6 mins 10

MRS Bulletin Materials News Podcast artwork

Materials News podcast by MRS Bulletin provides breakthrough news & interviews with researchers on hot topics including biomaterials, quantum materials, artificial intelligence, sustainability, perovskites, and robotics. Produced by the Materials Research Society.

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Episode 23: Frontal polymerization controls materials properties

Nov 18 2024 5 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Nancy Sottos, the Maybelle Leland Swanlund Endowed Chair and head of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois–Urbana Champaign (UIUC), and Justine Paul, a former student at UIUC who now holds a position at DuPont, about their work with frontal polymerization. By mimicking patt

Episode 22: Additive manufacturing enhances toughness in formable cementitious materials

Nov 15 2024 4 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Reza Moini of Princeton University about his group’s development of an enhanced additive manufacturing technique to fabricate cementitious materials with excellent fracture toughness. They based their design of the material on the double-helical or double-bouligand structure of coelacanth fish scales that resist defo

Episode 21: Hierarchical ceramics resist crack propagation

Nov 11 2024 5 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews postdoctoral research fellow Rohit Pratyush Behera and Prof. Hortense Le Ferrand of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore about their design of a strong and tough ceramic that absorbs energy, inspired from biology. They borrowed microscopic designs found in a mollusk, a mantis shrimp, and the enamel casing sur

Episode 20: Amino-silane treatment extends perovskite performance

Oct 15 2024 4 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Yen-Hung Lin of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology about his work to eliminate defects in perovskite solar cells. Lin’s group treated the perovskites with a category of molecules known as amino-silanes, which bind vacancies in the perovskites, preventing recombination of the electrons and holes. The amin

Episode 19: 4D-STEM measures thermal properties of 2D materials

Oct 10 2024 4 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Michael Pettes, deputy group leader and staff scientist at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies in Los Alamos National laboratory about a characterization technique that employs a four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscope (4D-STEM) paired with complex computational data analysis to directly measu

Episode 18: Glassy gels exhibit numerous mechanical properties

Aug 16 2024 4 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Michael Dickey of North Carolina State University about the discovery and mechanical properties of glassy gels. Dicky credits his postdoc Meixiang Wang who, while studying ionic liquids, created the first glassy gel. Dicky’s group found that the mechanical properties of their glassy gel include shape memory, self-he

Episode 17: Metamaterial tailors thermal emission

Aug 12 2024 3 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Coskun Kocabas from The University of Manchester in the UK about his development of a metamaterial that can tailor thermal emission. Rather than using a periodic system, which most topological materials employ, his research team borrowed a concept from laser design and created an optical cavity using a dielectric mediu

Episode 16: Researchers fabricate monolithic selenium/silicon tandem solar cell

Aug 06 2024 4 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Rasmus Neilsen from the Technical University of Denmark about his fabrication of a monolithic selenium/silicon tandem solar cell. The selenium forms the top cell of the tandem device, with silicon used as the bottom cell. Selenium-based single-junction solar cells have traditionally used fluorine-doped tin oxide. In th

Episode 15: Torsional force microscopy reveals the moiré superlattices

Jun 25 2024 4 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Mihir Pendharkar of Stanford University about characterizing electronic properties of twistronics materials. Twistronics refers to a type of electronic device consisting of two-dimensional materials layered at a relative twist angle, forming a new periodic structure known as moiré superlattices. Pendharkar and collea

Episode 14: Mixed-method approach characterizes nanovoids in polymer films

Jun 18 2024 5 mins

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Falon Kalutantirige from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Ying Li from the University of Wisconsin-Madison about their approach and discovery when characterizing nanovoids in polymer films. Using polyamide (PA) membranes as their subject of study, the researchers applied graph theory combined with electr