Partnership between GE Aerospace, Cincinnati, Ohio and the Singapore Economic Development Board brings AI-enabled inspection, predictive maintenance, and automated repair to speed turnaround and improve connectivity and customer experiences.
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Fraunhofer ICON Project “UltraGRAIN” demonstrates local microstructure control in metallic components during laser-based directed energy deposition, using pulsed-laser-induced melt pool excitation with potential for tailored products.
Continue readingASM International, Materials Park, Ohio, and The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), Warrendale, Pa., announced two new editors for the Metallurgical and Materials Transactions journals: Steven J. Zinkle, FASM, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Sridhar Seetharaman of the University of Warwick. Zinkle Named Editor for Metallurgical and Materials Transactions E Steven J.
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Scientists at Stanford University, Calif., x-rayed a damaged musical score to reveal the musical notes hidden beneath a layer of black carbon. The beautifully bound 1797 Luigi Cherubini opera Médée looks like an impeccably preserved relic of opera’s golden age. However, the final pages of the aria “Du trouble affreux qui me dévore” (“The terrible disorder that consumes me”) are blackened with carbon that completely obscures the closing lines.
Continue readingTAFA Inc., a Praxair Surface Technologies Co., Concord, N.H., has developed and improved equipment for coating performance and repeatability, as reported in “Equipment Advances for Advanced Coatings,” a presentation at the thermal spray conference announced below. Advanced features such as recipe storage, data acquisition, and remote diagnostics are playing larger and more important roles in process development and control.
Continue readingAdeka Corp., Japan, has developed a single-component type additive for TSV (Through Silicone Via) copper plating that will bring a reduction in costs, prevent defects, and enable versatility. Semiconductor manufacturers have recently been attempting to achieve a smaller size and higher performance of devices by stacking multiple chips into the 3D structure.
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Led by scientists at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, researchers turned to an unlikely model to make medical devices safer and more comfortable: a squid’s beak. Many medical implants require hard materials that have to connect to or pass through soft body tissue. This mechanical mismatch leads to problems such as skin breakdown at abdominal feeding tubes in stroke patients and where wires pass through the chest to power assistive heart pumps. Enter: the squid.
Continue readingApplied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., and Tokyo Electron Ltd., Japan, announce a definitive agreement to merge into a new company whose name has not been released. This combination brings together complementary leading technologies and products to create an expanded set of capabilities in precision materials engineering and patterning. The companies expect the transaction to close in mid to second half of 2014.
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Thermal Spray Technologies, Sun Prairie, Wis., in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, helped to develop innovative thermal spray coatings to improve heat protection and fuel efficiency in the next generation of jet turbine engines. The team’s experimental results were published in the August issue of the Journal of Thermal Spray Technologies in an article titled “Application of Plasma Spraying as a Precursor in the Synthesis of Oxidation Resistant Coatings.
Continue readingIBC Advanced Alloys Corp., Wilmington, Mass., reports that its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, IBC Engineered Materials Corp., is working directly with Lockheed Martin to develop specific investment-cast optical components on the F-35 Lightning II aircraft to demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of Beralcast beryllium-aluminum alloys. Beralcast principal alloys are more than three times stiffer than aluminum, with 22% less weight. They can be precision cast for simple and complex three-dimensional stability. These high modulus alloys are ideal for high-performance industrial and high-tech components, as well as for a wide range of aerospace applications.
This collaboration enables IBC to demonstrate its expertise and industry leadership in offering rapid prototyping and advanced materials solutions to provide investment cast parts to aerospace customers with short lead times and competitive pricing.
“IBC Engineered Materials is excited to be collaborating with Lockheed Martin and believe we will demonstrate the viability of our Beralcast alloys and cast components as mechanically compliant and cost effective components for the F-35 Lightning II program,” said Ray White, President of IB-EMC. “We hope that IBC’s partnership and collaboration with Lockheed Martin will advance the potential for our engineered materials products for other aerospace industry initiatives where modulus, weight, and cost are important design criteria.”
Blacksmiths fire metals before hammering them, as heat always softens metal, making it more malleable and easier to reshape. Or does it? In a surprising new study, engineers from Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) discovered that, in extreme conditions, heat does not soften pure metals—it strengthens them.
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Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have overcome a critical barrier in diamond-based electronics and microelectronics by using nanotechnology to integrate two-dimensional materials for efficient n-type doping, a breakthrough in electronic materials designed to operate in high-temperature environments and other harsh environments.
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Researchers at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences have developed a new method for making some of the smallest and smoothest curved optical mirrors used to control individual photons. The team, led by professors Marko Lončar, Mikhail Lukin and Kiyoul Yang, created high-performance mirrors that can trap light between them to form state-of-the-art optical resonators operating at near-infrared wavelengths—crucial for manipulating single atoms in quantum computing. The advance could benefit future quantum computers, quantum networks, integrated lasers and environmental sensing technologies.
Optical resonators, also known as optical cavities, are fundamental building blocks of countless light-based devices today, from precision instruments for timekeeping and spectroscopy, to lasers and optical interconnects in data centers. They are like guitar strings, but for light: Only certain wavelengths of light (as opposed to sounds) can fit inside the space between two mirrors and intensify. Increasingly, quantum applications require these same types of optical cavities, but much smaller and with lower signal loss.
The Harvard team’s new microfabrication method, led by first author and former graduate student Sophie Ding, was inspired by a practical problem facing colleagues in experimental physics who are trying to build quantum networks out of ultracold single atoms. They were in search of optical cavities with extremely smooth mirrors that would strongly couple atoms to photons, work at specific wavelengths, and could be scaled and shaped.
“We needed these high-quality photonic interfaces to create efficient ways to have single photons interact with single atoms, allowing for fast, high-fidelity quantum networking,” said paper co-author Brandon Grinkemeyer, a postdoctoral researcher in the Lukin lab.
But most lithography or etching methods today cannot produce sufficiently smooth mirror surfaces for the most demanding quantum applications.
Ding’s new method is an example of working smarter, not harder.
The researchers started with a silicon wafer and used thermal oxidation to grow a thin layer of silicon oxide on the surface, which works to flatten bumps and grooves. When removed, the oxide leaves behind a smooth silicon surface. On that surface, the researchers deposited a precisely engineered stack of transparent oxide layers, called a dielectric mirror coating. When a hole is etched through the back and the coating is freed from the silicon wafer, it buckles into a perfectly curved shape because of built-in mechanical stress, that naturally forms a high-quality mirror.
This process allows the researchers to control the radius of the mirror’s curvature and the wavelengths of light the mirror will reflect, making the method highly scalable and relatively simple.
“In microfabrication, we are sometimes confined by the thought that surface roughness is defined by the etch or the mask, and we try very hard to optimize them,” Ding said. “But when we are using the properties of the materials, we can do a lot less of that and have more robust results.”
The researchers showed their microfabricated resonators could reach a record “finesse” of 0.9 million at a wavelength of 780 nanometers, meaning light can bounce back and forth inside the cavity nearly a million times before scattering. By contrast, optical telecommunications signals transmit at 1550 nanometer wavelengths.
The optical cavities created with Ding’s new method could be used in modular quantum computing applications, in which many atoms are linked together by photons in optical fibers. The cavities would be the critical interfaces that let an atom’s quantum state be converted into light, transmitted, and written back into another atom.
The potential impact of the work extends beyond quantum computing. Due to its versatility and scalability, it could be adapted for other wavelengths that serve ultra-compact lasers, spectroscopic sensors, and integrated photonics in which many optical resonators can be built directly onto chips.
For more information: Optica
Image: Microcavities of two different lengths, 45 microns and 1 millimeter, placed on a finger tip.
Researchers have developed a new sub-second volumetric 3D printing technique that eliminates the need to rotate the printed sample, a long-standing mechanical challenge in the field. The system, called Digital Incoherent Synthesis of Holographic Light Fields, or DISH, instead rotates the illumination using a high-speed periscope, allowing millimeter-scale structures to be printed in 0.6 seconds with about 19-micrometer resolution across a 1-centimeter depth range. The advance addresses a persistent trade-off in volumetric additive manufacturing between resolution, stability and printable volume.
Volumetric 3D printing has long hoped to fabricate entire objects simultaneously – rather than layer by layer. But established approaches, such as computed axial lithography, typically rotate the resin container during exposure.
Fast rotation introduces vibration and alignment errors. Slow rotation, meanwhile, requires highly viscous resins, often thousands of centipoise, to prevent features from drifting before polymerization completes.
When it comes to optics, higher resolution demands higher numerical aperture (NA) objectives. Yet higher NA optics come with a shallow depth of field.
The system used in the study has an intrinsic NA of 0.055 at 405 nm, with a native depth-of-field of roughly 0.4 mm. That’s far smaller than the centimetre-scale volumes desirable for practical manufacturing.
DISH tackles both precision and scale at once.
In their method, instead of moving the resin container the researchers mounted a rotating periscope on a hollow stage to deliver synchronized angular illumination while keeping the sample stationary.
A 405 nm coherent laser is modulated by a Digital Micromirror Device operating at 17 kHz, projecting optimized binary patterns as the periscope rotates at speeds up to 10 revolutions per second.
The demonstrated sub-second fabrication corresponds to the specific exposure timing used in the reported experiments.
The team abandoned conventional ray-based approximations and implemented a wave-optics model that explicitly incorporates diffraction and refraction at the air–material interface.
A coarse-to-fine iterative optimization algorithm generates projection patterns that maintain intensity modulation well beyond the native focal plane.
An adaptive calibration scheme using two orthogonal cameras corrects single-pixel misalignments in the synthesized 3D light field, improving angular registration and exposure fidelity.
Performance tests show that DISH maintains approximately 19 μm feature fidelity across a 1 cm depth range, far exceeding the objective’s intrinsic 0.4 mm depth of field.
Relief-structure experiments demonstrated approximately 11 μm uniform linewidth across the full centimeter span, while the smallest independently resolved positive feature measured 12 μm.
Comparative tests against conventional back-projection approaches showed sharper edges and improved consistency, particularly in off-center regions where optical blur typically increases.
The single-sided illumination geometry does introduce a missing-cone trade-off that slightly affects axial resolution. The authors note that alternative periscope geometries could mitigate this limitation in future implementations.
One of the more practically significant findings is material compatibility. The system printed successfully in aqueous solutions of polyethylene glycol diacrylate with viscosities as low as 4.7 cP. Because polymerization completes within 0.6 seconds, gravitational drift occurs only after solidification.
By contrast, conventional volumetric systems often require viscosities between 6,000 and 10,000 cP to maintain positional stability during slower exposures.
The researchers also demonstrated printing in higher-viscosity resins and bio-derived hydrogels, including gelatin methacrylate (GelMA) and silk fibroin methacrylate (SilMA).
The single-sided geometry further enables in situ fabrication on fixed substrates and within confined environments such as petri dishes.
Integration with a fluidic channel allowed successive fabrication of multiple structures, pointing toward continuous production workflows.
The authors estimate voxel rates on the order of 1.25 × 108/second, calculated for a defined voxel size and build volume. They suggest that higher-power lasers and faster modulation hardware could further increase build rates.
Surface analysis indicates that inclined projection reduces the prominence of stripe-like speckle artefacts compared with perpendicular illumination systems.
However, the hologram optimization process currently requires substantial offline computation. The authors propose GPU acceleration or neural-network-based approaches as pathways to reduce processing time and enable more automated deployment.
By decoupling angular illumination from sample motion and synthesizing holographic light fields through wave-optics modeling, DISH demonstrates a way to extend effective depth performance without sacrificing resolution.
While industrial deployment remains prospective, the work outlines a credible pathway toward faster, continuous volumetric manufacturing using both acrylate-based systems and selected biomaterials.
Future efforts are likely to focus on accelerating hologram computation, refining optical geometries to address missing-cone effects, and scaling projection hardware.
For more information: Nature
A simple bouncy ball has become a key teaching tool for Penn State graduate students working to show children how materials behave and how science connects to daily life. Through “Mission: Materials Science,” an outreach program supported by Penn State’s NSF-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center, students collaborate with museum educators and media professionals to turn materials research into free, hands-on learning activities. The newest online collection introduces four experiments designed for children ages 8 to 13.
MRSEC and the Franklin Institute have partnered on projects since 2001. The project began as a collaboration with the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, where MRSEC researchers helped create tabletop exhibits for museum visitors. Over time, it evolved into a digital platform of do-it-yourself activities that can be completed at home or used in classrooms with commonly available supplies. Today, the initiative is led in close partnership with Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania.
The four new activities explore how materials store and exchange energy, how their structure affects behavior and how environmental conditions can change material properties. Experiments such as mixing bouncy ball recipes, building candy crystals and modeling how ocean chemistry affects coral-like materials were designed to encourage young learners to test ideas, observe results and connect science to the real world.
Each activity includes step-by-step instructions and short videos that guide learners through the experiment and explain the science behind it. Penn State’s public media partner, WPSU, produced the videos in collaboration with Discovery Space and MRSEC researchers, educators and students to ensure the content is accurate, engaging and accessible. Since each activity is mapped to the K-12 science standards with which it aligns, teachers can easily use the content in classrooms, too.
Some videos feature high school students demonstrating the activities, while others — which are titled “Scientist in Action” — highlight Penn State researchers explaining how the experiments connect to real materials science research. Together, the videos help bridge the gap between academic research and everyday experience, according to Vincent Crespi, distinguished professor of physics, of materials science and engineering, and of chemistry, who serves as the primary investigator on the Penn State MRSEC grant. Crespi also directs the Center for Nanoscale Science (CNS), which administers the NSF grant at Penn State, including the “Mission: Materials Science” project at Penn State.
Crespi explained that graduate students are central to the project’s success, and the initiative plays an important role in graduate education.
“Current graduate students are our future scientific leaders,” Crespi said. “For them to be successful, it is vital that they become skilled at connecting authentically with many types of audiences and learn how to work well across disciplines. This outreach project has been rich with opportunities to build those transferable skills and experiences.”
Graduate students in chemistry and in materials science and engineering and the CNS’s K-12 Outreach Team worked closely with other outreach staff and educators at Discovery Space and the Franklin Institute. They test activities with local children and refine them to be both scientifically rigorous and approachable.
For Michele Crowl, executive director of Discovery Space and its affiliated adult makerspace called the Rivet, the collaboration helps make advanced research accessible.
“The most meaningful part has been helping translate real, current materials science research into hands-on experiences that feel fun and approachable for kids and families,” Crowl said. “With MRSEC’s help, we can reach more kids in our area for STEM learning and show them that science doesn’t have to feel abstract or intimidating.”
For many graduate students, the experience reshaped how they see their role as scientists. Gayathri Ayyagari, a graduate research assistant in materials science and engineering, said working across disciplines changed how she communicates.
“Working with educators, scientists and media professionals created a truly interdisciplinary environment,” Ayyagari said. “It pushed me to listen carefully to different perspectives and find common language across those worlds.”
Katherine Thompson, a postdoctoral researcher in nanomaterials who was involved in the project when she was a graduate research assistant in chemistry, viewed the project as a way to give back.
“As a kid, I participated in science outreach activities that motivated me to pursue a career in STEM,” Thompson said. “Creating something that could inspire future scientists in the same way has been incredibly meaningful.”
For more information: Mission Materials Science
Image: Lilly Clarke, left, a Franklin Institute STEM Scholar, and Trent Rodgers, also a Franklin Institute STEM Scholar, guide viewers through an experiment to make homemade bouncy balls as part of the Mission: Materials Science project, a joint effort between the Center for Nanoscale Science in partnership with The Franklin Institute, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation via the interdisciplinary Materials Research Science and Engineering Center program.
A research team at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is teaming up with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory to test thin yet durable materials for hypersonic flight using an upgraded source of ultrabright x-rays.
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A joint research team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, N.Y., has developed a new analysis method that can detect “hidden defects” in semiconductors, electronic traps that interfere with electrical flow, with approximately 1,000 times higher sensitivity than existing techniques.
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NVIDIA, Santa Clara, Calif., and Samsung, South Korea, are building a new AI factory with 50,000 NVIDIA GPUs to accelerate agentic and physical AI applications for advanced chip manufacturing, mobile devices, and robotics.
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Tescan Group, Czech Republic, acquired FemtoInnovations, a leading innovator in ultrafast laser technologies, and created a new dedicated Laser Technology Business Unit headquartered at the University of Connecticut Tech Park that expands Tescan’s correlative and multimodal portfolio for semiconductor, biomedical device manufacturing, and advanced research markets.
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Hitachi High-Tech Corporation, Japan, has launched the Ultrahigh-Resolution Scanning Electron Microscope SU9600, which allows for highly accurate and precise observation of substances down to the sub-nano level.
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New technology and foundry partnership between GlobalFoundries, Malta, NY., and Navitas Semiconductor, Torrance, Calif., expands U.S. capacity for advanced GaN technology, design, and at-scale manufacturing to support a wide range of power management applications.
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Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and Florida State University’s Center for Advanced Power Systems and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory developed a cable design that uses multiple strands of superconducting tape, minimizing the chance of failure from defective spots within a wire.
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NIST has released a report outlining strategies to build a more efficient, sustainable, and resilient U.S. metals processing infrastructure, emphasizing the need for improved standards for recycled content and stronger supply chains for critical materials. Covering the full lifecycle—from mining and alloy design to manufacturing, reuse, and recycling—the report highlights that addressing these challenges is essential for innovation, industrial competitiveness, and national security. The findings stem from a NIST workshop held in July 2024.
“The workshop brought together a diverse group of experts from industry, academia and the policy world to take on some of the biggest challenges in the metals processing space,” said NIST materials research engineer Andrew Iams, a co-author on the report. “Meeting these challenges requires a new approach in how to source, process, use and recycle metals.”
The report covers various topics related to metals manufacturing, from new technologies for extracting and processing bulk materials, like aluminum and steel, to developing new modeling and data tools to design advanced alloys.
The report highlights the importance of critical materials, including minerals containing lithium and cobalt that are key manufacturing elements for smartphones, batteries, semiconductors and medical devices, as well as superalloys used in military hardware and jet engines.
These materials can be challenging to obtain due to limited availability and the risk of supply chain disruptions. Industries can address these issues by diversifying their supply chains with new sources, identifying substitute materials, and improving recycling methods to enable greater recirculation of existing materials.
The report also highlights the need to improve standards for metals reuse and recycling. Better standards can make the separation of metals for recycling more efficient, reducing industry costs. New certification programs can help ensure that products made with recycled content meet performance standards, which could expand the market for recycled materials.
The report highlights five strategies that would help the industry tackle these and other challenges:
The NIST workshop brought together manufacturers, technology companies, researchers and other experts from all stages of the metals processing chain. NIST has a long history of convening stakeholders across industrial sectors to solve shared problems through better technology and standards.
“We are always seeking ways to help industrial partners solve tough engineering or scientific problems,” Iams said. “Part of NIST’s mission is to help keep U.S. industry competitive. We can do that by identifying promising technologies and helping to move them out of the lab so they can be implemented on an industrial scale.”
For more information: Material Challenges in Developing a Sustainable Metal Processing Infrastructure – Workshop Report
Lehigh University’s Blacksmithing Club is set to move into its first dedicated lab space in Whitaker Laboratory, marking a major step for its growing community of student metalworkers. The club, supported by professor Laura Moyer and partnerships with Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites and Lehigh Heavy Forge, offers hands-on experience in both traditional and modern metalworking. Students have also practiced basic techniques at the historic 1750 Smithy, while The Loewy Institute continues to provide education in advanced metal-forming technology.
Moyer said the team had discussed building a lab for years but wasn’t sure how to achieve it financially or where it would be located.
With student interest rising, Moyer said the idea for the blacksmithing club started to solidify two years ago when a student — now club president Josh Swavely, ‘26 — mentioned his passion for blacksmithing in one of Misiolek’s classes.
Under the guidance of Moyer and Misiolek, the group helped launch a one-credit blacksmithing elective offered each spring. Moyer said this course, now in its second year, is open to students of all majors, as is the club.
Moyer also said they are hoping to grow the one-credit course that is currently offered for half a semester into a full-semester three-credit elective for students.
“Within the course we are developing, the idea is to balance time between the laboratory and the lecture hall, between practice and theory,” Misiolek said. “It will be much more of an opportunity to design your own products, analyze the proposed processes, and learn while you are going through the process.”
Moyer said the new laboratory will allow students to complete every stage of the design cycle in one place — from heating and shaping metal at the forge to examining the microstructure of their finished work.
She said students will also be able to fabricate hooks, blades and small hardware entirely on campus supported by new ventilation hoods, anvils and space for larger tools.
Misiolek said the club’s growth has been driven by access to working forges across Bethlehem. Through its partnership with Historic Bethlehem Museums & Sites, students learn centuries-old techniques at the 1750 Smithy.
He also said their work with the Lehigh Heavy Forge in Bethlehem allows students to witness a modern industrial facility that provides advanced forgings to clients.
“We are connecting the historical aspects of forging technology with hands-on experience and current industrial practices,” Misiolek said.
He also said beyond traditional forging skills, the new lab will support lessons on heat treatments, controlled cooling and other methods that help students compare how different variables affect the strength and performance of their designs.
Nick Rockwell, a researcher at the Loewy Institute, said community partnerships have been essential in turning the club’s ideas into practice.
“With all the support we’ve received, it’s really helped us connect with Historic Bethlehem,” he said.
He also said Mike Rex, the shop and laboratory operations supervisor, has been instrumental in building facilities for the lab and giving advice on how to best use the space.
The club also gives students opportunities beyond the classroom. Members have participated in the Forging Industry Educational and Research Foundation’s annual competition and secured funding from the nonprofit organization to support their work.
“We pride ourselves in our hands-on approach,” Moyer said. “There are a lot of materials science and engineering departments across the country, but many don’t allow undergraduate students into labs or use highly specialized equipment.”
For more information: Lehigh University
Image: Josh Swavely, ’26, is pictured forging a point in the soon to be blacksmithing lab. Swavely is the president of the Lehigh Blacksmithing Club. (Max Randall/B&W Staff)
Designing hypersonic aircraft that travel at five to seven times the speed of sound is a major challenge because their materials must be lightweight yet capable of withstanding extreme heat and pressure. To address this, researchers at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, are developing a device that simulates the intense thermal and mechanical stresses of hypersonic flight. Paired with the ultrabright X-rays of Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source, this system will allow scientists to observe real-time changes in these materials under flight-like conditions.
“Recreating the environment of hypersonic flight can be complicated,” said Seetha Raghavan, professor of aerospace engineering and a co-principal investigator on the project. “There are so many factors and no perfect way to test them all. High enthalpy wind tunnels that can simulate the wind speed use a lot of energy resources and are limited in access.” (Enthalpy refers to the heat content of a system at constant pressure.)
The research team’s goal is an alternative that replicates hypersonic flight conditions using fewer energy resources and uses APS X-rays to capture detailed data. The APS is in the final stages of an upgrade that increased the brightness of its X-ray beams by up to 500 times. It is now the brightest synchrotron X-ray facility in the world, and according to Raghavan, the enhanced capabilities of the upgraded APS are crucial to this project.
“When you are talking about hypersonics, you’re talking about high speeds and fast changes, and response time is critical,” she said. “You can only get that kind of time resolution with enough flux (or brightness of the beam), and the upgraded APS is able to help with that.
“Additionally, the materials we’ll be testing are the thinnest that can be used, and at the upgraded APS you can focus the beam down to a small enough size to capture the data we need,” she said.
Victoria Cooley, an APS beamline scientist who worked with the Embry-Riddle team at beamline 1-ID, touted both the upgraded X-ray beam and the improved experiment station.
“It’s an exciting time for our beamline,” she said. “Brighter X-rays allow us to probe deep into materials with a higher-resolution beam and map very thin samples like these. At the same time, we have installed faster, more sensitive detectors to capture chemical or crystallographic changes occurring incredibly quickly. These two pieces come together to make world-changing projects such as this one possible.”
Uncovering materials that can withstand the conditions of hypersonic flight and are not prohibitively expensive to produce is key to unlocking their many applications. Durable hypersonic materials could be used for military and civilian aircraft, as well as cargo delivery vehicles.
The hypersonic materials project is supported by a $1.4 million contract from the U.S. Department of War Joint Hypersonics Transition Office through the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics. The Embry-Riddle team’s principal investigator is William Engblom, professor of aerospace engineering, and Mark Ricklick, associate professor of aerospace engineering, is a co-principal investigator.
For more information: Embry-Riddle
Image: The Embry-Riddle research team at Beamline 1-ID, with Argonne scientist Victoria Cooley (back row, right). (Image by Mark Lopez/Argonne National Laboratory.)
Researchers at The Grainger College of Engineering have integrated their expertise in metals with advanced machine learning to create detailed spatial maps, enabling faster and more precise autonomous material design. Similar to how fingerprint technology captures intricate ridge and valley patterns for biometric identification, their approach leverages spatial mapping of fine details to revolutionize material engineering.
This evolution of recognition technology is mirrored in the field of materials science, where researchers seek new and efficient ways to fully characterize materials, accelerating the discovery of additional new materials. Much like human fingerprints, the performance of metal mixtures called alloys relies on the intricate spatial arrangement of microstructural features. Traditional methods reduce this complexity into a handful of averaged values, causing each alloy to lose its distinctive “fingerprint.”
In a recent complement of papers from the lab of Jean-Charles Stinville, assistant professor of materials science and engineering, Illinois Grainger engineers have introduced new machine learning approaches for identifying alloy microstructures and predicting their properties rapidly. The Illinois researchers’ method will provide new avenues for faster and more efficient materials design.
Microstructures are tiny structural features of metals that influence their strength and behavior. Scientists look to the microstructural properties of metals to assess their functionality. Metals used in propulsion devices like rockets and airplanes have special requirements.
“We are sending these materials into increasingly extreme environments,” Stinville said. “They are exposed to intense environments; for instance, structural materials for space applications must be resistant to mechanical loading under extremely low or high temperatures. Conventional alloys don’t do as well in these conditions because their mechanical properties tend to degrade under these extreme environments. We want to find new ways to accelerate the identification of alloy chemistries and microstructures that can withstand these harsh conditions.”
The complete details of these microstructures, including small-scale influential variances called heterogeneities, cannot be easily captured by existing methods. Instead, Stinville and his colleagues used deep learning to analyze diffraction patterns, or the way electrons interact with metals. By encoding these interactions through a machine learning method onto a spatial latent representation, the researchers captured the full extent of an alloy’s microstructure and its heterogeneity — an approach Stinville calls Material Spatial Intelligence.
“Traditionally, we have used single descriptors or average values to guide data-based alloy design,” he said. “But spatial information from local measurements over a large field of view allows us to capture microstructure heterogeneity of the alloy. Using such spatial information in a data-based model provides significant improvement in prediction accuracy and enables alloy and microstructure design.”
The initial model is a machine learning approach that successfully identified microstructures and material heterogeneity in unprecedented detail. In a second paper published in Scripta Materialia, Stinville further progressed the model towards the prediction of mechanical properties using the developed approach of material spatial intelligence. This method accelerates alloy property prediction by orders of magnitude and provides a rapid fundamental understanding of structure properties in metals.
“I started my career as an experimentalist, where I developed tools that allowed us to collect large fields of view with very high resolution,” he said. “Then I went over to the numerical side to develop machine learning tools to actually use all this spatial information. As a metallurgist, I have an understanding that metals are controlled by local properties and their heterogeneities. My unique material scientist background really helped me in developing these novel models.”
By combining high-resolution digital image correlation with alloy microstructure characterization, Stinville examined tiny regions of metal surfaces and how they deformed at a small scale when loaded. Training a new model to recognize these deformation fingerprints allowed him to reliably predict important properties like strength, fatigue life, and ductility (the ability to extend without breaking). The model significantly decreases the time for testing, lessening the time needed to evaluate new alloys. This acceleration brings the field one step closer to intelligent alloy design.
Stinville envisions a future model that works backwards from a user’s desired properties to suggest a chemical composition and microstructure that best suits the given parameters. By integrating these approaches with his group’s advances in automated characterization, Stinville’s lab is setting the stage for fully autonomous alloy design, marking their next frontier.
But even as exciting advancements loom, Stinville still marvels at his field’s early beginnings.
“This approach unites our field’s fundamental understanding of metals with new and efficient AI database tools,” he said. “We’re not just taking these new tools and leaving behind what we’ve already learned. We’re integrating the present with the past.”
Mathieu Calvat, Chris Bean and Dhruv Anjaria significantly contributed to this research.
For more information: NPJ Computational Materials
Image: Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) maps of the investigated Inconel 718 alloys. Inverse pole figure (IPF) maps along the X direction (horizontal) are presented for a A wrought and fully recrystallized 718 alloy, and a B additively manufactured as-built 718 alloy
Rice University researchers have discovered that light can induce a physical shift in the atomic lattice of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), a class of atom-thin semiconductors. This tunable effect, observed in a Janus-type TMD, opens the door to technologies that use light instead of electricity, enabling faster, cooler computer chips, ultrasensitive sensors, and flexible optoelectronic devices.
“In nonlinear optics, light can be reshaped to create new colors, faster pulses or optical switches that turn signals on and off,” said Kunyan Zhang, a Rice doctoral alumna who is a first author on a study documenting the effect. “Two-dimensional materials, which are only a few atoms thick, make it possible to build these optical tools on a very small scale.”
TMDs are layered crystals made of a transition metal such as molybdenum and two layers of a chalcogen element like sulfur or selenium. Their combination of electrical conductivity, light absorption and mechanical flexibility has made them one of the most versatile classes of materials for next-generation electronics and optoelectronics.
Within this family, Janus materials stand out for their asymmetry — an idea reflected in their name. Like their mythological namesake, these materials have two different faces: The top and bottom atoms are made of different chemical species, creating an internal imbalance that gives the crystal a built-in electrical polarity, making it particularly sensitive to light and external forces.
“Our work explores how the structure of Janus materials affects their optical behavior and how light itself can generate a force in the materials,” Zhang said.
Using laser light of different colors, the team studied how a two-layer Janus TMD material — molybdenum sulfur selenide stacked on molybdenum disulfide — converts light through a process called second harmonic generation (SHG), in which the material emits light at twice the frequency of the incoming beam. They found that when the incoming light matched the material’s natural resonances, the doubled-frequency light pattern became distorted, signaling that the atoms inside were being displaced.
“We discovered that shining light on Janus molybdenum sulfur selenide and molybdenum disulfide creates tiny, directional forces inside the material, which show up as changes in its SHG pattern,” Zhang said. “Normally, the SHG signal forms a six-pointed ‘flower’ shape that mirrors the crystal’s symmetry. But when light pushes on the atoms, this symmetry breaks — the petals of the pattern shrink unevenly.”
The team traced the distortion to optostriction, a process in which the electromagnetic field of light itself exerts a mechanical push on atoms. In Janus materials, that push is amplified by strong coupling between the atomic layers, allowing even minute forces to produce measurable strain.
“Janus materials are ideal for this because their uneven composition creates an enhanced coupling between layers, which makes them more sensitive to light’s tiny forces — forces so small that it is difficult to measure directly, but we can detect them through changes in the SHG signal pattern,” Zhang said.
That sensitivity could make these materials useful far beyond the lab. Components that switch or route light using this principle could make optical chips faster and far more energy-efficient, since light-based circuits generate less heat than conventional electronics. The same responsiveness could be harnessed to create precise sensors capable of detecting the smallest vibrations or pressure changes or tunable light sources for advanced displays and imaging tools.
“Such active control could help design next-generation photonic chips, ultrasensitive detectors or quantum light sources ⎯ technologies that use light to carry and process information instead of relying on electricity,” said Shengxi Huang, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice and a corresponding author on the study. Huang is also a member of the Smalley-Curl Institute, the Rice Advanced Materials Institute and the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice.
By showing how Janus TMDs’ built-in imbalance opens new ways to steer the flow of light, the study highlights how small structural features can unlock large technological potential.
For more information: ACS Nano
Image: Shengxi Huang is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has renewed funding for Q-NEXT, a National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Argonne National Laboratory with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, for another five years. Backed by $125 million—$25 million in fiscal year 2026 and future funding subject to congressional approval—this investment ensures Q-NEXT will continue driving advancements in quantum information science and technology, reinforcing the United States’ leadership in this transformative field.
“Quantum information science is a cornerstone of the nation’s technological future, with the potential to transform industries including computing, healthcare and national security,” said inaugural Q-NEXT Director David Awschalom, who is also a senior scientist at Argonne, the director of quantum engineering at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. “Through our renewed mission, Q-NEXT will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in quantum science, delivering the foundational knowledge, tools and technologies needed to ensure national leadership in this critical field.”
Awschalom has now assumed the role of chief science officer.
Q-NEXT’s mission is to unlock the future of quantum information by seamlessly integrating quantum and traditional information systems across optical networks. Building on its achievements over the past five years, the center will focus on demonstrating the potential of distributed quantum entanglement — a phenomenon where qubits, the fundamental unit of quantum information, remain connected even when separated by large distances.
“We’re building on the strong foundation we’ve laid over the past five years to take on our renewed mission — harnessing distributed entanglement to show what’s possible with scalable quantum platforms,” said Q-NEXT Director and Argonne scientist Martin Holt. “By uniting quantum technologies across optical networks, we will pave the way for systems capable of revolutionizing how we process, transmit and receive information.”
Q-NEXT brings together a strong network of partners: two DOE national laboratories, 11 leading universities and six tech companies. This cross-sector collaboration ensures that the center’s work is both innovative and practical, bridging the gap between scientific discovery and real-world application. Universities contribute expertise in quantum sensing and communication, while industry partners provide access to state-of-the-art prototypes and manufacturing capabilities. Together, Q-NEXT partners form a vibrant ecosystem that drives progress in quantum science.
“We envision quantum systems that work across chip-to-chip, lab-to-lab and city-to-city scales,” said Q-NEXT Deputy Director Jennifer Dionne, who is a professor of materials science and engineering and, by courtesy, of radiology at Stanford University and SLAC. “We’re excited to advance a shared set of hardware, software and protocols to make quantum networks and sensors efficient and practical.”
Q-NEXT’s renewed efforts will focus on three scientific goals:
Q-NEXT will pursue its goals through large-scale, team-based projects that combine materials science, device engineering and quantum physics theory. By leveraging world-class science facilities, Q-NEXT aims to deliver breakthroughs that will shape the future of quantum technology. These facilities include the Argonne and SLAC Quantum Foundries, the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource and several DOE Office of Science user facilities: Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source and Center for Nanoscale Materials, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source.
In addition to its scientific mission, Q-NEXT will continue to build the next generation of quantum scientists, engineers, technicians and other professionals. Through educational programs, internships and training opportunities such as the DOE Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship and the Open Quantum Initiative Undergraduate Fellowship, the center is preparing students, early-career researchers and operations specialists to thrive in the rapidly growing quantum industry.
“By fostering a skilled workforce, Q-NEXT is ensuring that the U.S. remains at the forefront of quantum innovation,” Awschalom said.
Q-NEXT was established in 2020, and in its first five years, it led the establishment of the Argonne and SLAC Quantum Foundries. Together these two national facilities contribute to a robust supply chain of standardized materials and devices.
“We’ve built an active, cross-disciplinary collaboration that’s laid the groundwork for networked quantum information by intertwining computing, sensing and communication,” Holt said. “Over the next five years, we’ll strengthen these efforts, strategically coordinating with the other NQISRCs and the national quantum ecosystem to accelerate the arrival of transformative quantum technologies.”
Collaboration with industry has been essential to the center’s mission — turning cutting-edge research into innovations that can transform technology and strengthen the nation’s quantum leadership.
“IBM’s work with the National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, such as Q-NEXT led by Argonne, is vital to our mission to build the future of computing,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow. IBM is a Q-NEXT partner. “Together, we are exploring how efficient quantum networks can be created through optical links connected to IBM’s quantum networking units. This could deliver the fundamental technology needed to link the multiple, interconnected fault-tolerant quantum computers of the future over kilometer distances, allowing the convergence of quantum computation and communication within a future quantum computing internet that could revolutionize scientific and industrial discovery.”
Q-NEXT is one of five DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Centers renewed for another five years.
“Quantum technologies are driving innovations across society, and our laboratory is focusing on delivering science breakthroughs to accelerate these innovations,” said Argonne Director Paul Kearns. “With a renewed Q-NEXT, we will continue to play an integral role in the national quantum ecosystem through coordinated, complementary efforts with DOE’s other quantum research centers. We are committed to realizing the promise of quantum information to build a more connected world and shape a future of scientific progress that strengthens our nation’s security, prosperity and technological leadership.”
For more information: Argonne National Laboratory
Image: The DOE has renewed the Q-NEXT quantum center for five years with a $125 million investment. One of Q-NEXT’s major first-run accomplishments was the establishment of two national quantum foundries — one at Argonne (pictured) and one at SLAC. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)
Researchers have long sought to make semiconductors—essential for computer chips and solar cells—function as superconductors, which can carry electricity without resistance for faster, more efficient performance. This has been difficult because it requires a precise atomic structure that enables free electron movement. Now, an international team has achieved a breakthrough by creating a form of germanium that exhibits superconductivity, allowing electric currents to flow indefinitely without energy loss. This advancement could significantly enhance electronic and quantum devices while reducing power consumption.
“Establishing superconductivity in germanium, which is already widely used in computer chips and fiber optics, can potentially revolutionize scores of consumer products and industrial technologies,” explains Javad Shabani, a physicist at New York University and director of its Center of Quantum Information Physics and Quantum Institute.
Peter Jacobson, a physicist at the University of Queensland, adds that the findings could accelerate progress in building practical quantum systems. “These materials could underpin future quantum circuits, sensors, and low-power cryogenic electronics, all of which need clean interfaces between superconducting and semiconducting regions,” he says. “Germanium is already a workhorse material for advanced semiconductor technologies, so by showing it can also become superconducting under controlled growth conditions there’s now potential for scalable, foundry-ready quantum devices.”
Germanium and silicon, both group IV elements with diamond-like crystal structures, occupy a unique position between metals and insulators. Their versatility and durability make them central to modern manufacturing. To induce superconductivity in such elements, scientists must carefully alter their atomic structure to increase the number of electrons available for conduction. These electrons then pair up and move through the material without resistance — a process that is notoriously difficult to fine-tune on the atomic scale.
In the new study, researchers developed germanium films heavily infused with gallium, a softer element commonly used in electronics. This technique, known as “doping,” has long been used to modify a semiconductor’s electrical behavior. Normally, high levels of gallium destabilize the crystal, preventing superconductivity.
The team overcame this limitation using advanced X-ray methods to guide a refined process that encourages gallium atoms to take the place of germanium atoms in the crystal lattice. Although this substitution slightly distorts the crystal, it preserves its overall stability and allows it to carry current with zero resistance at 3.5 Kelvin (about -453 degrees Fahrenheit), confirming that it had become superconducting.
“Rather than ion implantation, molecular beam epitaxy was used to precisely incorporate gallium atoms into the germanium’s crystal lattice,” says Julian Steele, a physicist at the University of Queensland and a co-author of the study. “Using epitaxy — growing thin crystal layers — means we can finally achieve the structural precision needed to understand and control how superconductivity emerges in these materials.”
As Shabani notes, “This works because group IV elements don’t naturally superconduct under normal conditions, but modifying their crystal structure enables the formation of electron pairings that allow superconductivity.”
For more information: Nature Nanotechnology
Image: Josephson junction structures—quantum devices made of two superconductors and a thin non-superconducting barrier—using different forms of germanium (Ge): super-Ge (in gold), semiconducting Ge (in blue), and super-Ge on wafer-level scale. Millions of Josephson junction pixels (10 micrometer square) can be created with this new material stack on wafer scale. Inset shows crystalline form of Super-Ge on the same matrix of semiconductor Ge, a key for crystalline Josephson junction. Credit: Patrick Strohbeen/NYU
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) now have a new technique in their toolkit for nuclear forensics examinations, which is the art and science of extracting information about the provenance and history of nuclear materials.
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