Materials Sciences and Engineering News

New Fermi arcs could provide a new path for electronics

Newly discovered Fermi arcs that can be controlled through magnetism could be the future of electronics based on electron spins.

New magnetic band splitting explained with graphics.

Artificial intelligence paves the way to discovering new rare-earth compounds

Artificial intelligence advances how scientists explore materials.

One scientist’s trash is another’s treasure: A laboratory’s “irritating” byproduct now supplies 2-D materials research

scientists discovered that an unwanted byproduct of their experiments was an extremely high-quality and difficult-to-obtain substance sought by others.

First author: undergraduate internship at Ames Laboratory jump-starts research career

Tyler Del Rose participated in the U.S. Department of Energy’s SULI program at Ames Laboratory while an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan.

For the sake of the planet, refrigeration tech needs an update

Refrigeration keeps our food is fresh and our offices and living rooms are temperature-controlled thanks to vapor compression technology developed over a century ago, but it's reached its theoretical limit for potential energy efficiency. A group of scientists and engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory are inspired by the idea that refrigeration could be radically improved—made cheaper, cleaner, and more energy-efficient—by abandoning vapor compression for something entirely new: a solid-state caloric system.

Crystallizing success: New crucible design makes materials research safer, more accurate

When traditional methods weren't producing the desired results, Ames Laboratory physicist Paul Canfield set about designing a better method to strain samples during flux growth. The result is a new, commercially available crucible system that bears Canfield's name.

Cooler in 10

A new research consortium at Ames Laboratory called CaloriCoolⓇ launched in 2016 with the idea that refrigeration could be radically better—cheaper, cleaner, more precise and energy-efficient—by abandoning vapor compression for something entirely new: a solid-state caloric system. And this research team plans to do it—including adoption into manufactured systems and products—within a decade.

The Power of One: Single crystals provide clarity

hen it comes to creating new materials, single crystals play an important role in presenting a clearer picture of a material’s intrinsic properties. A typical material will be comprised of lots of smaller crystals and the grain boundaries between these crystals can act as impediments, affecting properties such as electrical or thermal resistance.

Ames Laboratory scientist Paul Canfield removes a sample from a flux-growth furnace.

Exploring Mysteries on the Surface: 2D Materials reveal surprising properties

wo-dimensional materials are a bit of a mind-bending concept. Humans live in a three dimensional world, after all, where everything observed in our natural world has height, width, and depth. And yet when graphene—a carbon material unique in its truly flat, one-atom-deep dimension—was first produced in 2004, the mind-bending concept became reality and an unexplored frontier in materials science.

Solid-state Processing: New paths to new materials

Creating materials in their solid state can be tricky, but offers some advantages over other methods. It typically involves subjecting the component elements to some type of mechanical force—such as stress, shear or strain—to drive a reaction.

Ball milling canisters and stainless steel milling balls