Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, have developed a megalibrary platform that enables the rapid, intentional engineering of new materials with specific properties, such as piezoelectricity, by using high-throughput screening and AI-ready datasets to accelerate discovery from years to hours.
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A research team at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., has deployed AI agents with the potential to accelerate the recovery of critical minerals from real-world industrial waste in days instead of the months or years required for manual experimentation.
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Tescan, Czech Republic, unifies non-destructive Micro-CT, ultrafast laser processing, and high-precision FIB-SEM into a single, integrated workflow to accelerate root-cause determination in advanced semiconductor packaging while minimizing preparation-induced artifacts.
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JEOL Ltd., Japan, has launched global sales for LazEdge, a SEM system that integrates proprietary Hamamatsu Photonics laser technology directly into the specimen chamber for high-speed, high-quality sample processing.
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Bruker Corporation, Billerica, Mass., announced accelerated development of its photothermal AFM-IR spectroscopy capabilities to address research challenges facing the semiconductor industry as device architectures continue to shrink and systems become increasingly more complex.
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Researchers at the University of Southern California have unveiled a new memristor memory device that continues to operate at 700 degrees Celsius (~1300 degrees Fahrenheit), marking it as the most robust high-temperature memory technology ever demonstrated.
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Austenitizing temperatures for water-hardening tool steels normally vary from 760 to 845 °C (1400 to 1550 °F), as indicated in Table 2. Higher temperatures are sometimes used for special purposes (Fig. 2). Hardenability increases as austenitizing temperature increases. The optimum time at austenitizing temperature is from 10 to 30 min. Preheating is unusual except for very large tools or those with intricate cross sections. It is particularly important to protect shallow-hardening steels against scaling and decarburization. Severe scaling can interfere with heat transfer during quenching and slow the required high rate of cooling. Decarburization will produce a soft surface on any tool steel, but in a deep-hardening steel it can be ground off until the underlying hard high-carbon area is reached. Grinding a shallow-hardening steel will frequently expose the soft core.
For more information, click on the link below (subscription required). Then scroll to Figure 2.
Rafael Agnelli Mesquita; Reinhold Schneider; Cristiane Sales Gonçalves, Heat Treating of Cold-Work Tool Steels — Low- and Un-Alloyed Water and Oil Hardening Steels, ASM International, 2014. https://doi.org/10.31399/asm.hb.v04d.a0005972
Australian scientists at the University of Melbourne have made a significant leap forward in energy storage technology by developing and testing the world’s first proof-of-concept quantum battery.
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Following an international expansion strategy initiated in 2022, a new global semiconductor test solutions group named Cosmic has been formed by uniting specialized industrial companies from Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States into two independent divisions: Cosmic Equipment and Cosmic Services.
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Advanced microscopy research at the US Department of Energy μ-ATOMS Energy Frontier Research Center reveals motifs of trace atoms in semiconductors, paving the way for new microelectronics designed atom by atom.
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ZEISS, Germany, unveiled the Crossbeam 750 FIB-SEM for demanding sample preparation, providing a live “see while you mill” view to enable immediate feedback and uniform first-pass TEM lamellae without interruptions.
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The Helmut Fischer Group, Germany, introduced an all-new generation of its high-end segment for coating thickness measurement and material analysis using X-ray fluorescence with two devices, FISCHERSCOPE XDAL and FISCHERSCOPE XDV.
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As with all coating technologies, thermal spray has some limitations; understanding them is important so that engineers can design effective solutions to the challenges of surface modification.
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Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Calif., created a new model for crystal defects at realistic temperatures. As most materials, especially metals and ceramics, are crystals, their atoms are arranged in three-dimensional lattices that repeat the same exact pattern, over and over again. But there’s a well-known saying in materials science: “Crystals are like people. It is the defects that tend to make them interesting.”
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To determine what Earth was like early in its lifetime, researchers turn to minerals called zircons, which are resilient against physical and chemical alteration over time and thus preserve a precise chemical record about the moments in which they were formed. Some of the oldest zircon crystals are 4.4 billion years old. Now, a new study at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) examines these most ancient zircon grains and discovers evidence for two key findings.
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Cornell researchers, Ithaca, N.Y., have used high-resolution 3D imaging to detect, for the first time, the atomic-scale defects in computer chips that can sabotage their performance using a new imaging technique called electron ptychography.
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New research from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory found that applying an electric field to a ceramic material removes barriers to phonon transport, conducting heat almost three times more efficiently along the field direction, challenging conventional understanding about controlling heat flow in solid materials.
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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.
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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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Stainless steel is widely known for its corrosion resistance. But when it is exposed to environments containing chloride ions, such as seawater, the risk of corrosion increases. Manufacturers typically grind the surface to smooth it. However, this finishing process reduces corrosion resistance even further. Researchers at Tohoku University in Japan have recently shed light on why this occurs.
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Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new X-ray tomography method called the perception fused iterative tomography reconstruction engine (PFITRE), a novel approach that combines the physics of X-rays with the power of artificial intelligence (AI).
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Researchers at several Chinese institutions, led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed a 3D electrical imaging technique that enables direct observation of how charge moves through perovskite films.
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A new University of Florida study reveals how hidden flaws in design and installation of aluminum light poles on a Central Florida bridge contributed to their unexpected collapse when Hurricane Ian moved across Florida in 2022, even though wind speeds remained below the structures’ design limits.
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Researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, U.K., have shown that consumer-grade 3D printers and low-cost materials can be used to produce multi-element optical components that enable super-resolution imaging, with each lens costing less than $1 to produce. The new fabrication approach could broaden access to fully customizable optical parts and enable completely new types of imaging tools.
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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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Researchers from the Institute of Metal Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have developed an innovative flexible sensor that can simultaneously detect strain, strain rate, and temperature using a single active material layer, representing a significant advance in multimodal sensing technology.
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Imina Technologies SA, Switzerland, released a new Nanoprobing High-Voltage Platform designed to safely apply voltages up to 1 kV through both nanoprobing tips and the backside of the sample, addressing the growing need for reliable electrical characterization of wide-bandgap and high-power semiconductor devices such as SiC- and GaN-based MOSFETs, IGBTs, and other devices.
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Oxford Instruments, UK, has been awarded a prestigious Institute of Physics Business Innovation Award for the development of BEX, a breakthrough analytical technique in scanning electron microscopes, enabling new capabilities and accelerating time to results by at least an order of magnitude.
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Tescan, Czech Republic, announces that Carlyle, together with the other shareholders, has entered into a definitive agreement with Shimadzu Corporation, Japan, for the sale of the company, resulting in a change in Tescan’s shareholding structure.
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