Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems, Germany, have developed an optical coherence tomography testing system that non-destructively detects seal defects in real time during film packaging processes.
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Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed SimuScan, an artificial intelligence framework that uses realistic synthetic data to train AI to identify nanoscale features and autonomously target the most informative regions of a sample.
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Hitachi High-Tech Corporation, Japan, established the Innovation Center Eindhoven at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven in the Netherlands.
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Innovative Circuits Engineering Inc., San Jose, Calif., a leader in semiconductor reliability testing solutions, launched its latest innovation: the eM808 bHAST system—now enhanced with in-situ monitoring capabilities previously available only on high temperature operating life systems.
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Penn State and Kurt J. Lesker Company have launched a strategic partnership to advance atomic-scale materials processing for semiconductors, advanced packaging, quantum technologies and photonics. Central to the collaboration is the new Kurt J. Lesker Company Atomic Scale Processing Center of Excellence, known as ASPIRE, at Penn State. The center will combine the company’s equipment and process expertise with Penn State’s nanofabrication, materials research and characterization capabilities to support next-generation technology development and workforce training. The partnership was formally launched Sept. 9 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding and a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Millennium Science
KJLC is a Pennsylvania-based company specializing in vacuum science and equipment used to create and shape extremely thin layers of materials. These thin films are essential components in semiconductors and other advanced technologies.
A central goal of the partnership is to develop and validate atomic-scale processing recipes, or detailed instructions for creating thin films with specific properties. These recipes could ultimately be shared with KJLC customers and academic researchers around the world.
The partnership builds on a research relationship, demonstrating the world’s first ferroelectric aluminum-scandium nitride thin films grown by plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition. The achievement highlights the role of atomic scale processing in enabling next-generation semiconductor, quantum and advanced electronic technologies, according to KJLC and Penn State leadership.
The most recent collaboration will focus on two highly precise processes: atomic layer deposition, which builds thin films a few atoms at a time, and atomic layer etching, which removes material with similar precision. That level of control is critical because even tiny differences in a material’s thickness or composition can affect how well a device performs.
“Few universities offer the combination of research expertise, characterization capabilities and nanofabrication infrastructure available at Penn State,” said Joshua Robinson, director of Penn State’s Materials Research Institute and professor of materials science and engineering. “Coupling those strengths with Kurt J. Lesker Company’s technologies and process engineers creates a unique environment where new ideas can benefit scientific discovery and advance technology development.”
Under the agreement, KJLC will loan three ultra-high purity atomic scale processing tools to the Nanofabrication Laboratory. One 200-millimeter atomic scale processing system integrates both atomic layer deposition and atomic layer etching, enabling researchers to deposit and etch materials with near-atomic precision. Together, the systems are valued at approximately $4.45 million. KJLC will retain ownership and responsibility for maintaining them. Penn State researchers will have access to the three systems for University research, joint projects with KJLC and work conducted for Penn State’s user community.
“From a business perspective, Penn State was the natural choice because of our long-standing relationship and shared commitment to advancing scientific discovery,” said Kurt Lesker IV, president and CEO of Kurt J. Lesker Company. “Through the Materials Research Institute, Penn State brings world-class researchers, advanced nanofabrication capabilities, and a collaborative environment where industry and academia work side by side to solve important challenges. Together, we are creating a center of excellence that will accelerate innovation, develop future talent, and strengthen leadership in semiconductors, advanced packaging and next generation technologies.”
The partnership will also establish workforce development programming for undergraduate and graduate students and early-career professionals, with potential activities including internships and graduate research support.
“KJLC already has considerable training programs in vacuum technologies and deposition,” Robinson said. “By connecting that industry expertise with the research happening at Penn State, we can create new training opportunities for students and the broader workforce.”
Such training opportunities will include learning from Penn State researchers and KJLC engineers, who will use the loaned equipment to develop and test new materials and processing methods for applications including quantum technologies, micro- and nano- scale sensors and mechanical devices, biomedical coatings, advanced packaging and flexible electronics.
“The future of advanced technology will be built one atomic layer at a time,” Lesker said. “By combining Penn State’s research leadership with Kurt J. Lesker Company’s vacuum and thin film expertise in atomic scale processing, we can accelerate the development of new materials and manufacturing processes that enable breakthroughs in semiconductor packaging, quantum technologies, photonics and advanced electronics. Just as importantly, this partnership helps bridge the gap between scientific discovery and real-world application while preparing the next generation of scientists and engineers who will drive innovation for decades to come.”
Penn State and KJLC researchers will use the systems to develop recipes specifying the materials, temperatures, timing and other conditions needed to consistently create a particular thin film or structure. The partners will develop a growing library of standardized atomic-scale processing recipes that can be shared across the research community and ultimately deployed on KJLC platforms worldwide. KJLC will also provide Penn State access to 38 processes it has already developed, and Penn State researchers will be able to draw on KJLC’s principal scientist and other technical experts while developing new ones.
Once a process is developed and refined through the partnership, KJLC could make it available to customers using its equipment elsewhere, extending work done at Penn State to researchers and companies around the world.
For more information: Communications Materials
Image: Andrew Read, Penn State senior vice president for research, right, and Kurt Lesker IV, president and CEO of Kurt J. Lesker Company, left, do a ceremonial ribbon cutting to launch the partnership between Penn State and Kurt J. Lesker Company to develop new ways to create specialized materials for next-generation technologies. Credit: Jennifer M. McCann / Penn State
Researchers at TU Wien, in collaboration with the University of Vienna, JKU Linz and the University of Innsbruck, are developing a quantum computer-assisted electron microscope designed to capture additional quantum information carried by electrons that is typically lost in conventional imaging. The approach could produce clearer images while reducing the number of electrons needed, helping protect delicate samples such as biological materials. A prototype quantum computer electron microscope based on the concept is currently under construction at TU Wien.
Using Quantum Entanglement to Get More From Each Electron
Modern electron microscopes already achieve extraordinary resolution.
“Today, we can image tiny details on the atomic scale,” says Philipp Haslinger from the Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics at TU Wien. “However, this requires a large number of electrons. And not every sample can be exposed to so many electrons without being damaged. This is often a problem, particularly when imaging biological samples such as individual proteins.”
The challenge, then, is to learn more from each electron so researchers can reduce the total number needed to produce an image.
The team proposes doing this by linking the electrons to a quantum computer built around trapped ions.
“Our idea is to combine the electrons with a quantum computer. We let them interact with ions that are held in place along the path of the electron beam,” explains Elias Pescoller, first author of the publication and a doctoral student at the Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics at TU Wien. “This can, for example, create quantum entanglement between the electron and the quantum computer. The electron and the ion then share a joint quantum state.”
Quantum entanglement allows two quantum systems to share information in ways that have no direct equivalent in classical physics. In this setup, an electron passing through the microscope can become entangled with an ion in the quantum computer, allowing information about the electron to be stored in the ion.
Turning Weak Signals Into Useful Information
After one electron interacts with the trapped ion, another electron can pass through and become entangled with the quantum computer as well. By repeatedly carrying out carefully designed quantum operations, the system can combine information from multiple electrons.
“If we perform very specific quantum-computing operations each time, we can optimally combine the information from several electrons so that we obtain a signal of maximum strength even though we use only a relatively small number of electrons,” says Dennis Rätzel from the Institute of Atomic and Subatomic Physics at TU Wien.
The algorithms needed to carry out this processing were developed in collaboration with Johannes Kofler’s team at JKU Linz.
The basic imaging process still relies on electrons, just as it does in a conventional electron microscope. The difference is that the quantum computer can process information that those electrons carry that would otherwise be lost.
“The electrons themselves are used to image small objects, just as in any other electron microscope. But by processing the quantum information carried by these electrons in a quantum computer, we can extract significantly more information from the process,” says Iva Březinová from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at TU Wien. “What would previously have been indistinguishable from random noise can thus become a clear signal.”
That could allow scientists to recover useful details that would be impossible to identify using ordinary electron counting alone.
“Quantum physics allows us to overcome the statistical limits that constrain conventional electron microscopes,” says Elias Pescoller.
From Mathematical Proof to a Working Microscope
So far, the researchers have shown mathematically that the new method should offer important advantages. The next challenge is to demonstrate those benefits experimentally.
At TU Wien’s University Service Center for Transmission Electron Microscopy (USTEM), researchers are preparing to integrate an ion-based quantum computer into an electron microscope. The quantum computer was developed by Philipp Schindler’s team at the University of Innsbruck.
If the system works as expected, it could open a new approach to electron microscopy in which researchers gain more information while exposing sensitive samples to fewer electrons.
“It is really exciting that, within the quantA Cluster of Excellence, we can combine the expertise in quantum information, quantum computing and electron microscopy available at the different universities in Austria. This allows us to launch a unique project,” says Thomas Juffmann from the University of Vienna.
For more infromation: University of Vienna
Image: An electron microscope capable of performing quantum computing operations using built-in ion traps. Credit: TU Wien
Rice University Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Vanessa Sanchez has received the Toyota Programmable System Innovation Fellowship to develop advanced 3D-knitted soft robotic textiles that integrate sensing, movement and mechanical functions directly into fabric. The research aims to create textiles that can adapt to users’ needs, such as enhancing mobility, improving comfort and increasing safety, with the long-term goal of making the textile itself function as a robot.
“We tend to think of fabric as something passive — something that covers, cushions or supports another device,” Sanchez said. “We’re asking what happens when the textile becomes the device itself with sensing, movement and mechanical function built directly into its structure.”
Today’s soft robotic systems often combine fabrics with separate sensors, actuators, electronics and structural components. That can make devices bulky and complicated to manufacture and can limit their ability to comfortably conform to different bodies. Sanchez’s team is taking a different approach. By carefully controlling yarn selection, stitch patterns and three-dimensional knit architecture, she aims to encode mechanical behavior into a textile as it is manufactured. Functional fibers, pneumatic channels and sensors could be integrated into the same knitted structure, allowing a fabric to bend, twist, contract or inflate while also sensing its own movement and interaction with a user.
This approach builds on years of Sanchez’s work in the field of textiles, materials science and robotics — and the unconventional path she took to get here.
Sanchez began using a sewing machine as a young child, and she initially studied fashion design as an undergraduate.
“I began college studying fashion at FIT before transferring to Cornell to study fiber science,” Sanchez said. “That shift helped me realize I could bring together my interests in design and engineering.”
She later earned graduate degrees at Harvard University, where she worked on soft robotic systems designed to assist human movement, before conducting postdoctoral research at Stanford University. Today, she directs Rice’s texlab, where she designs robotic textiles and soft wearable systems.
That combination of textile design and engineering shapes the new Toyota-supported project.
“Textiles are already extraordinarily good at interacting with the human body,” Sanchez said. “They stretch, conform, distribute forces and move with us. If we can add robotic functionality without losing those qualities, we can begin designing systems that are much more natural and comfortable for people to use.”
The 12-month project will focus first on integrating sensing and actuation — the ability to detect changes and produce movement — within the same 3D-knitted structures.
Using materials including conductive fibers, pneumatic channels and composite knitted architectures, Sanchez’s team plans to create textile modules capable of programmed sequences of motion, such as contracting, bending, twisting and inflating.
At the same time, embedded sensing could allow those structures to detect information such as strain, pressure, deformation and loading. Eventually, that capability could enable a robotic textile to sense what is happening to it and adjust its behavior in response.
Sanchez’s lab has already developed technologies featuring textile-based sensors, programmed textile actuators, morphing fabrics and knitted pneumatic actuators capable of producing specific motions based on their structure. At Rice, her group is also investigating AI-guided textile design and new manufacturing techniques for knitted robotic systems.
The fellowship will allow her to begin bringing those capabilities together into more integrated systems.
The second phase of the project will translate those textile systems into prototype technologies relevant to mobility. Possible applications include wearable devices that provide localized assistance to help a person move, seating or interior surfaces that change shape or stiffness in response to a user and soft safety structures that deploy or deform to absorb energy.
The prototypes will be developed in collaboration with Toyota researchers and evaluated for performance, sensing, manufacturability, weight, adaptability and safe interaction with people.
The research reflects a general shift toward designing robots that can operate more naturally alongside humans. For Sanchez, the project is part of a larger effort to expand what textiles can do.
“I’m continuously trying to understand the relationship between fibers and yarns and their structures so well that I can be really innovative and build something brand new,” she said. “Ultimately, I want to use textiles to create new kinds of machines and systems that can support people.”
For more information: Texlab
Image: Vanessa Sanchez in her lab at Rice.
Matergenics has deployed its hydrogen-in-steel monitoring sensor at a hydrogen-natural gas blending facility in Italy, marking the first operational use of the technology. Engineered by Techfem S.p.A., the facility blends green hydrogen into a natural gas network and is supported by continuous remote monitoring from Matergenics’ Hydrogen Solutions Division in Pittsburgh. The system uses continuous dilation measurements and HEILD-based analysis to help assess hydrogen embrittlement risks in operating steel piping.
Hydrogen blending is widely regarded as a near-term pathway for reducing the carbon intensity of existing natural gas infrastructure. However, introducing hydrogen into steel piping can increase susceptibility to hydrogen embrittlement—a degradation process in which absorbed hydrogen reduces ductility and fracture resistance and may contribute to crack initiation or accelerated crack growth without readily visible warning signs.
Conventional operating measurements, including pressure, flow, temperature, and leak detection, do not directly characterize hydrogen uptake or the evolving mechanical response of the steel. Matergenics’ monitoring technology is designed to help address this gap.
The sensor is bonded directly to the exterior of the pipe and continuously measures extremely small dimensional and strain changes associated with hydrogen interaction with the steel. The resulting data are securely transmitted to Matergenics’ Pittsburgh monitoring center, where they are evaluated using proprietary analytical methods based on HEILD—the Hydrogen-Enhanced Instability by Local Dilation framework.
HEILD relates localized, hydrogen-associated dilation and mechanical instability to the susceptibility of a specific material and component to hydrogen-assisted damage. Rather than relying solely on hydrogen pressure, exposure time, or other generalized operating parameters, the system evaluates the response of the actual steel component while it remains in service.
“For decades, the hydrogen-embrittlement community has largely had to infer risk from environmental conditions, laboratory testing, and indirect measurements,” said Dr. Michael McGuire, Chief Scientist at Matergenics. “This deployment gives us the ability to monitor the mechanical response of an operating steel pipe continuously and translate that response into actionable information for integrity management.”
The project combines Techfem’s expertise in hydrogen and hydrogen–natural gas infrastructure with Matergenics’ sensing, materials-testing, and analytical capabilities. Together, the technologies provide the facility operator with visibility into a degradation mechanism that conventional pressure, flow, and leak-monitoring systems are not designed to detect.
“This installation represents an important step toward condition-based integrity management for hydrogen infrastructure,” said Dr. Mehrooz Zamanzadeh, Founder and President of Matergenics. “Our objective is to help operators identify changes in hydrogen-related risk before they develop into cracking, leakage, or loss of containment.”
The installation builds on an ongoing hydrogen-monitoring collaboration between Matergenics and Techfem and supports Matergenics’ continuing development and validation of HEILD as a framework for evaluating hydrogen-assisted damage in ferritic, martensitic, and austenitic steels.
Matergenics and Techfem intend to evaluate the system’s in-service performance and explore its application to additional hydrogen-blending facilities, pipelines, storage systems, and other hydrogen-exposed assets.
ABOUT MATERGENICS, INC.
Matergenics, Inc. is a materials, corrosion, and failure-analysis engineering firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Led by Dr. Mehrooz Zamanzadeh, FAMPP and FASM, the company provides corrosion assessment, materials testing, failure analysis, structural-integrity evaluation, and remote monitoring services. Matergenics’ Hydrogen Solutions Division focuses on hydrogen embrittlement research, accelerated testing, materials qualification, and in-service structural monitoring. Its technologies include HEILD—the Hydrogen-Enhanced Instability by Local Dilation framework—and the Circumferentially Pre-Cracked Round Bar methodology for accelerated determination of threshold stress-intensity behavior, K₁ₕ, in hydrogen environments.
ABOUT TECHFEM S.p.A.
Techfem S.p.A. is an Italian engineering company with more than 40 years of experience in strategic energy infrastructure. The company delivers engineering and project management services across the hydrogen, natural gas, CO₂, and power transmission sectors, supporting the development of secure and sustainable energy systems. With over 60 hydrogen projects in its portfolio, Techfem is active throughout the hydrogen value chain, from production and blending to transport and storage, while advancing innovative solutions through participation in national and European research and development programs.
For more information: Matergenics, Inc.
LECO Corporation, St. Joseph, Mich., has demonstrated how its CS844ES elemental analyzer enables accurate determination of sulfur at levels as low as 0.1 µg in steel, nickel, and superalloys, extending the combustion technique to sensitivities previously unachievable
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Intertek, U.K., a leading total quality assurance provider to industries worldwide, has expanded its materials testing capabilities with the opening of a new lab at its Transportation Technologies facility in Plymouth, Michigan.
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Bruker Corporation, Billerica, Mass., launched its new timsMRMS system, designed to empower researchers in petroleomics, sustainable fuels, and advanced energy storage
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Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology built an AI model trained on 2,000 different semiconductor materials using data from a noninvasive neutron-scattering technique that can detect and classify up to six kinds of point defects in a material simultaneously, something that would be impossible using conventional techniques alone.
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Oerlikon Metco Coatings Ltd., U.K., has successfully completed the Nadcap accreditation process, marking an important milestone in the company’s continued expansion into the U.K. aerospace sector.
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Researchers Saarland University (Saarbrücken, Germany), are studying metallic-glass alloys in experiments carried out on board the International Space Station (ISS). Working with the European Space Agency and the German Aerospace Center, in the fall of 2026, the team will investigate the properties of these alloys using hot, levitating droplets.
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In a new study, researchers from Yale University (New Haven, Conn.) show that a mold about half the size of a fingernail could lead to the development of stronger, higher-performing materials for airplanes and other uses. Their novel method provides unique insight into the microstructure and properties of a metal and eliminates the limitations of more traditional analysis.
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Researchers from Google, Mountain View, Calif., and Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, have developed a novel failure analysis hardware and sample preparation solution that enables system-level failure analysis on mobile 3D integrated circuits.
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PerkinElmer, Shelton, Conn., and Covalent, Sunnyvale, Calif., announced a strategic collaboration to advance failure analysis and materials characterization for semiconductor, electronics, and battery industries.
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An interdisciplinary team at the Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials, Germany, has identified exactly how dendrites grow and pierce ceramic electrolytes to trigger fractures that ultimately lead to battery failure.
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An international research team from the Skoltech Engineering Center at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Russia has, for the first time, directly measured mechanical stresses at the contact between a diamond indenter and a complex nanostructured coating at a resolution of less than 80 nanometers.
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Keysight Technologies, Santa Rosa, Calif., announced Keysight Multiphysics, a design and verification solution that addresses the physics interactions driving failure in modern electronic designs, featuring a structural analysis application covering drop, shock, and vibration that enables engineering teams to identify and fix problems earlier, before a prototype is built.
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Researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have, for the first time, demonstrated that Minnesota’s abundant low-grade iron ore can be converted into semiconductor-quality pyrite, also known as iron sulfide or “fool’s gold.” The breakthrough could open the door to more cost-effective and sustainable electronic devices by transforming a widely available natural resource into a valuable semiconductor material. Because pyrite is inexpensive, non-toxic and highly effective at absorbing light, it has significant potential for future technologies, and this research shows that Minnesota’s iron ore resources may provide a viable pathway for producing high-quality semiconductor materials despite the challenges posed by impurities and defects.
In this work the researchers took iron ore samples directly from the Minnesota Iron Range and demonstrated that they can be used to synthesize semiconductor-quality fool’s gold using simple processes. This discovery took the researchers by surprise.
“We realized that pyrite’s really not like a typical semiconductor – it is surprisingly immune to impurities,” said Chris Leighton, Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and senior author on the paper. “So, we wondered, do we even need the high purity material that we (and everyone else) had been using to make semiconducting pyrite.”
The researchers were able to test three different types of iron ore in this process. It turns out that the one that works best — Direct Reduced Grade Taconite — is one of the most commonly used grades available in Minnesota.
“There are all sorts of reasons why you would think this would not be possible,” Leighton added. “But, during processing the dirty — or low-purity — iron ores, directly from the Minnesota Iron Range, were easily converted to semiconductor-quality pyrite with no extra purification steps. This happens for reasons that we now understand pretty well.”
This discovery could open up a new revenue stream for a global industry, with a broad spectrum of applications in clean energy technologies, based on a natural resource found abundantly in Minnesota.
Future applications of this research could arise in batteries, solar panels, electronics and processes to purify water. The team hopes to continue this research by testing additional types of iron ores, as they come in a vast variety of grades. They would also focus on making not bulk crystals of pyrite with these Iron Range resources, but also thin film samples more closely relevant to devices.
In addition to Leighton, the research team included Yeon Lee and Caitlyn Komar from the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Jennifer T. Mitchell from the University of Minnesota Characterization Facility and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, along with Matt Mlinar, Jestos Taguta and George Hudak from the University of Minnesota Natural Resources Research Institute.
For more information: Physical Review Applied
Image: Professor Chris Leighton (right) and graduate student Yeon Lee (left) have demonstrated that a certain grade of iron ore found in Minnesota could be the key to the sustainability of future electronics.
Rice University researchers have developed a method to keep diamond stable during high-temperature, low-pressure processing, enabling the creation of a durable bulk composite material. Their research also revealed that high-speed impacts can quickly transform diamond into graphite, providing new insight into how diamond absorbs energy and changes under extreme stress. Because diamond combines exceptional hardness with high thermal conductivity, these findings could help scientists design stronger, more resilient materials for aerospace, defense and other high-performance applications.
Small diamond particles are relatively inexpensive and easy to produce, but turning them into larger diamond structures has proved difficult, Ajayan said.
One way to join those particles into a larger structure is through sintering, a process that uses heat and pressure to form a solid. With diamond, however, the high temperatures can turn it into graphite. High-pressure, high-temperature methods can produce polycrystalline diamond, but they require extreme pressure and limit the size of the samples produced.
To keep diamond stable during processing, the researchers mixed microscopic diamond grains with cubic boron nitride, a material with properties similar to diamond, and cobalt to bind and stabilize the mixture.
They used spark plasma sintering, a rapid process that applies heat and pressure to turn powders into a solid. The process produced an extremely strong composite with diamond particles embedded in the boron nitride matrix and cobalt distributed throughout.
“The composite made by this process is almost nonmachinable and tough due to the presence of dispersed diamond particles and could help researchers design tougher materials for aerospace, defense and other technologies that face extreme conditions,” said Abhijit Biswas, first author and research scientist in Rice’s materials science and nanoengineering department.
The researchers then subjected the composite to high-speed collisions to study how it behaved under extreme force.
Researchers fired tiny metal projectiles measuring 1-4 millimeters across at the composite at hypersonic speeds, and the material held together when struck by one of the projectiles traveling at more than seven times the speed of sound. A larger projectile traveling even faster caused the composite to break apart.
During the collision, nearly all the diamonds involved in the transformation became graphite within microseconds.
Diamond and graphite are both made of carbon, but their atoms are arranged differently. That difference makes diamond hard and graphite much softer.
“We found that extreme impact can drive diamond to graphite within microseconds, rather than through the slower heat-driven process we normally associate with this transformation,” Biswas said. “That gives us a new view of how diamonds behave under some of the most demanding mechanical conditions.”
The researchers examined the fractured composite and used molecular dynamics simulations, computer models that track how atoms move and rearrange. Their analysis revealed areas where diamond and graphite met, providing clues to how the transformation occurred.
The study attributes the change to energy from the shock and structural rearrangements that turn diamond into graphite.
The researchers also found that the conversion to graphite helped absorb some of the energy from the collision as the diamond’s atomic structure changed.
The findings offer a closer look at how internal transformations can help toughen materials under severe conditions.
“Understanding how materials change their structure and phase under force, along with their strength and hardness, could help guide the design of future protective materials,” Biswas said.
For more information: Materials Today
Image: Pulickel Ajayan, left, and Abhijit Biswas, right. Photo by Jorge Vidal.
As technology advances beyond traditional silicon-based electronics, organic semiconductors are emerging as a key material for innovations such as wearable sensors, implantable devices and foldable screens. Toulik Maitra, a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering at the University of California, Davis, is helping advance this field through computational modeling that explores how these materials behave at the molecular level. His research recently expanded through a collaboration with Germany’s Max Planck Institute, a world-renowned leader in polymer and organic electronics research, bringing the future of flexible and next-generation electronics one step closer to reality.
Silicon is an excellent semiconductor, capable of switching between conducting and blocking electricity. However, silicon atoms are locked together by covalent bonds, making them strong but also rigid.
Organic semiconductors, on the other hand, are carbon-based materials that can perform the same electronic functions as silicon but are more flexible because their molecules are held together by weak attractions called van der Waals forces.
“It’s the same force that lets a gecko stick to a smooth wall without any glue,” Maitra says.
That flexibility also makes the materials much more difficult to model accurately.
“Due to van der Waals forces, at room temperature, the molecules vibrate, causing each electron cloud to shift in response to its neighbors, or polarization,” Maitra said. “It has a large effect on how charges move through the material and interact with light.”
Capturing this behavior accurately in computer simulations is difficult, slowing the design of new organic semiconductor materials. Maitra’s goal is to computationally model the molecular behavior to design better materials before anyone steps into a lab.
During a six-month appointment as a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, Maitra and his collaborators set out to capture how shifts in polarization affect charge transport and light interactions.
The international team developed a new computational framework that predicts how individual atoms respond to their molecular surroundings, enabling simulations to more accurately reflect the behavior of organic semiconductors in the real world.
The framework accounts for the unique environment surrounding each atom. It has proven more accurate than conventional methods, which assign the same electronic properties to broad categories of atoms.
It also accurately models molecules in their neutral, charged and excited states — the same conditions they experience inside a working electronic device. When combined with machine learning, the framework can quickly predict these properties for new molecules, enabling researchers to identify promising materials before synthesizing them in the laboratory.
Maitra is already applying these improved modeling techniques to his doctoral research in the laboratory of Adam Moulé, professor of chemical engineering at UC Davis. There, he studies organic semiconductor materials for organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, with a particular focus on thermally activated delayed fluorescence, or TADF, emitters and high-mobility molecules.
Currently, the highest-efficiency OLED displays often rely on rare metals such as iridium and platinum to produce bright, energy-efficient light. TADF materials offer a promising alternative, achieving similar performance with entirely organic molecules.
By more accurately predicting how those molecules will behave before they are synthesized, Maitra hopes to help researchers accelerate the search for efficient OLED materials that reduce dependence on expensive, rare-earth materials.
“I am always excited to move the field forward,” Maitra said. “If this method works, then the next thing you want to model — device performance or vibration analysis — can be done in a better way.”
Maitra will be able to continue his collaboration with the Max Planck Institute at UC Davis in the Moulé Lab thanks to a UC Davis Dissertation Fellowship, which is awarded by UC Davis Graduate Studies to support a Ph.D. student for a year toward the end of their academic career.
The fellowship gives Maitra the time to focus on publishing his research, completing his dissertation and preparing for a career advancing organic semiconductor technologies.
“I believe in this field,” Maitra said. “Working with organic semiconductors will make a better future.”
Intel Foundry has created the world’s thinnest gallium nitride chiplet, measuring just 19 micrometers thick, along with the industry’s first fully monolithic on-die digital control circuits built on a 300 millimeter GaN-on-silicon wafer.
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A research team at Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea developed an interferometric second-harmonic generation imaging approach capable of optically identifying hidden structural defects in thin films of hexagonal boron nitride, a promising material for next-generation semiconductor technologies.
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A multi-disciplinary team led by Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., has developed a material that is both tunable and efficient, marking an achievement that was one of the most elusive goals in microwave electronics.
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Sony Semiconductor Solutions, Japan, and imec, Belgium, have unveiled a high-density “local BDI” module for 3D chip stacking that allows through-silicon vias to connect through up to 500nm of bulk silicon, unlocking advanced logic and DRAM applications without needing to completely remove the silicon.
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Materials scientists at Rice University, Houston Texas, have developed a custom Python-based software tool that uses high-resolution X-ray diffraction to rapidly analyze microscopic defects and calculate dislocation density in diamond and other advanced semiconductor materials.
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Japan’s Shimadzu Corporation fully acquired Czech electron microscopy pioneer Tescan, marking an important milestone in Tescan’s continued growth and evolution.
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Northeast Ohio has been selected as one of 12 National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines, making the region eligible for up to $160 million in funding over the next decade to advance manufacturing through materials research, artificial intelligence and workforce development. Led by Case Western Reserve University, the NEO-SMART coalition includes more than 70 partners from industry, academia, philanthropy and government and emerged from a highly competitive national process involving hundreds of proposals. ASM International is proud to be a partner in the NEO-SMART coalition.
The federal investment over 10 years will be subject to meeting performance milestones along the way. It begins with $7.5 million in each of the first two years, followed by $15 million annually for three years and $20 million annually during the final five years.
Partners have committed another $120 million during the first two years of the effort and hope to attract more than $500 million in combined public, private and philanthropic investment.
“This is great news for Northeast Ohio and for the entire state of Ohio,” Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement accompanying the announcement.
“When federal dollars come to our state to strengthen manufacturing and build up our workforce, every Ohioan benefits. And I am grateful for the extensive partnership effort that made this award possible.”
The initiative, known as NEO-SMART — Northeast Ohio Strengthening Manufacturing for American Resilience through Technology — aims to capitalize on the region’s strengths in metals, polymers, chemicals and coatings.
Organizers envision Northeast Ohio becoming a national hub for advanced manufacturing by accelerating research discoveries from laboratories into commercial products while training workers needed to support that growth.
Julie Edgar, Lubrizol’s chief technology officer and a NEO-SMART governing board member, said Northeast Ohio’s concentration of technical talent gives companies an advantage in global competition.
“We compete globally every day, and the depth of technical and scientific talent in this region helps us continue to compete and grow,” Edgar said. “We must actively develop the next generation of chemists, engineers and advanced manufacturing technicians. This funding creates the opportunity to do that at scale.”
The effort also seeks to strengthen domestic supply chains serving multiple industries, including automotive, aerospace, defense and medical devices.
“The manufacturing challenges of the next decade will be solved by academic researchers, industry partners and factory floor teams who work in collaboration to turn scientific insight into commercial reality,” Case Western Reserve University President Eric Kaler said.
“Together, we will advance the region’s growth and prosperity.”
The National Science Foundation established its Regional Innovation Engines program in 2022 to strengthen American competitiveness of technologies considered critical to the nation’s economic and national security interests.
This is the second round of awards.
From an original pool of 71 applicants, NEO-SMART was named one of 29 semifinalists last July before advancing in September to the final round of 15.
A seven-member Science Foundation team visited Cleveland in January for presentations and breakout sessions with about 100 leaders, including executives from Sherwin-Williams and Lubrizol, the mayors of Akron and Cleveland, and Gov. DeWine.
The NEO-SMART coalition grew on the premise that Northeast Ohio already possesses many of the ingredients needed for an advanced manufacturing ecosystem, including major industrial employers, research universities, community colleges and specialized expertise in materials science.
Image: Johnny Vanderford, program coordinator in Mechatronics at Lorain County Community College, shows a microscopic image of a semiconductor.
