New state-of-the-art facility provides access to advanced materials, manufacturing tools

A new facility at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus will give researchers and corporate partners access to a wide range of advanced materials and manufacturing tools, supporting work with cutting-edge technologies. The Biodesign Institute marked the opening with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and facility tours earlier this month.

Managed by the Biodesign Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing, or SM3, the facility houses tools that support research such as scanning electron microscopy, thermal analysis, light scattering, mechanical testing, gas permeability measurements, water uptake analysis and rheological testing to better understand and optimize material performance.

The lab also features cutting-edge additive manufacturing technologies, ranging from extrusion-based systems to light-driven 3D printers.

Among its most notable additions is the Cubicure Caligma printer, the first system of its kind in the United States capable of integrating extrusion and light-based printing at the micron scale, opening new possibilities for precision manufacturing and materials development.

The new laboratory represents the transformation of the former ASU Biodesign Clinical Testing Lab — best known as the site of the university’s large-scale COVID-19 saliva testing operations — into a state-of-the-art research hub dedicated to advancing sustainable materials innovation.

The facility is already serving a growing community of researchers, with approximately 60 faculty members, students and staff from across ASU utilizing the space and its resources.

By bringing together expertise in materials science, engineering, chemistry and manufacturing, the center aims to accelerate the development of sustainable products and technologies while strengthening Arizona’s innovation ecosystem.

During the ceremony, attendees heard from Biodesign leaders and industry partners about the importance of investing in shared research infrastructure that can support both fundamental discovery and commercial translation.

“We’re focused on sustainability,” said Tim Long, director of the Biodesign Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing. “And these days what does that mean? That means resiliency. It means supply chain. It means using our resources more effectively. It means being more competitive as a nation, more competitive with our companies and more effectively educating our students, the future generation, the future workforce.”

The new laboratory is also expected to serve as a catalyst for expanded partnerships with leading instrument manufacturers and private industry, helping drive Arizona-based product innovation and workforce development.

Industry representatives participating in the event highlighted the value of collaborative research environments that connect academic expertise with real-world challenges.

“What this expansion does in practice is reduce friction,” said Jeff Addy, an ASU alumnus and research and development manager from Cargill Bioindustrial. “It means you can move from an idea to real data faster, ask better questions and iterate more quickly. That changes the kind of work you can do, not just how fast you can do it.”

Following the ribbon cutting, guests toured the laboratory and explored the technologies that will support the next generation of sustainable materials research and manufacturing at ASU.

For more information: Biodesign Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing

Image: Industry collaborators tour the Biodesign Institute’s new shared manufacturing lab managed by the Center for Sustainable Macromolecular Materials and Manufacturing on Tuesday, June 9. The facility provides access to advanced tools that support electron microscopy, thermal analysis, light scattering, mechanical testing, gas permeability, water uptake, rheology and 3D printing. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News

Designing matter at the nanoscale

Toni Taylor, a Los Alamos National Laboratory fellow and physicist, recalls that early terahertz research was hindered by the lack of modulators—devices that control light’s amplitude, phase or frequency—making it difficult for this promising band to reliably carry information for communications and medical applications. Situated between microwaves and infrared light, the terahertz range is too fast for conventional electronics and too slow for traditional optics, leaving it largely unmastered compared with other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that drove advances such as radar and photonics. Because terahertz waves pass through typical modulator materials with little absorption or reflection, scientists have had limited ability to control them, creating what is known as the “terahertz gap” and leaving significant technological potential untapped.

Terahertz waves oscillate trillions of times per second, hundreds of times faster than the microwave-frequency systems used in today’s wireless networks. In principle, that behavior means they could carry vastly more information than today’s fastest consumer networks. But communications is only part of the appeal. Like x-rays, terahertz radiation can penetrate many nonmetallic materials, but unlike x-rays, it doesn’t ionize atoms, meaning it doesn’t change the materials’ structure. In theory, that makes terahertz radiation well-suited to nondestructive probing of delicate materials, from biological tissue to concealed explosives. “There just weren’t good photonics devices there,” Taylor says. “At the time, neither naturally occurring materials nor manmade alloys interacted strongly enough in that band to control it.”

By the early 2000s, when Taylor and coworkers began working in the terahertz band, the computer revolution had pushed technology to an inflection point. Moore’s Law was still busy shrinking transistors, but devices had reached dimensions small enough that quantum effects shaped performance. Advances could no longer come from simply making components smaller. To keep accelerating computation, materials had to be designed down to the level of their very atoms.

For the first time, nanoscale engineering, working at dimensions of billionths of a meter, where materials behave in fundamentally new ways, was becoming practical. Long before nano products were built, scientists could model them on supercomputers that predicted how electrons and electromagnetic waves would behave in such tiny structures. Cleanroom fabrication techniques refined by the microelectronics industry were building structures smaller than one hundred nanometers with remarkable precision, while scanning tunneling microscopes and atomic force microscopes made it possible not only to image the placements of individual atoms but, in some cases, to nudge them deliberately into place.

All of these technological factors, plus the promise of the capabilities they enabled, led the Department of Energy’s Office of Science to create the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a centerpiece facility among a national network of nanoscale research centers. Opened in 2004 and jointly operated by Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, CINT was built as a user facility, a place where scientists from around the world could propose ideas and gain access to specialized tools and expertise. Housed within this tightly integrated environment, researchers could move from theory to synthesis to fabrication to characterization—all at the nanoscale.

For researchers like Taylor, CINT turned the terahertz gap from an abstract limitation into an engineering problem. “All of the tools needed to develop the modulators were at CINT,” Taylor says. Her team’s work on the project began in earnest in 2006, when a postdoctoral researcher named Willie Padilla arrived at Los Alamos with expertise in metamaterials: artificially structured surfaces engineered to manipulate electromagnetic waves in ways natural materials cannot.

The way a material traditionally absorbs or reflects light is dictated by its atomic composition—the electronic transitions and vibrational modes built into its chemistry.  Padilla’s insight was that they no longer had to rely on the electronic structure of naturally occurring materials to support a resonance at terahertz frequencies. They could engineer a material instead.

Using CINT’s modeling tools, he and his collaborators designed metallic patterns sized to resonate at terahertz frequencies: tiny, repeating loops and gaps etched into a thin film of gold. When a terahertz wave struck the patterned surface, its oscillating electric field drove the metal’s free electrons back and forth. If the geometry was right—if the loops and gaps were sized precisely for that frequency—the electrons would move in sync with the incoming wave. The energy in the terahertz waves that would otherwise have passed quietly through the material was briefly captured, scattered, or absorbed. Like radio antennas tuned to a single station, the gold resonators responded strongly only at the frequency dictated by their shape.

But this was still a passive response, like a filter or detector. The resonator device could isolate or suppress an individual frequency, but couldn’t change that frequency in real time. Without time-dependent control, it wasn’t yet useful for information transmission. To do that, Padilla, along with his coworkers Hou-Tong Chen, Richard Averitt, and Taylor had to find a way to modulate the signal itself.

The solution lay in setting the patterned metal resonator atop a semiconductor substrate. By injecting charge into that substrate—electrically or with an ultrafast optical pulse—the team temporarily increased its conductivity. That shift altered how freely the electrons in the resonators could oscillate. When the substrate became more conductive, the oscillations dissipated energy more quickly and the response weakened; when it was less conductive, the resonance sharpened. In practical terms, a static surface had become a controllable gate. A region of the spectrum long considered technologically awkward could now be modulated in real time. The work culminated in a 2006 paper demonstrating active control of terahertz radiation.

What followed was not just a device, but a new way of thinking about matter: that it could be modified at the nanoscale to realize ideas once confined to theory. Taylor’s group went on to pursue higher-speed modulators, tunable filters, polarization rotators, and broadband converters. They extended the same nanoscale design principles to problems across national security and optical communications. More recently, collaborators demonstrated structures that can generate and steer terahertz radiation with unprecedented control. That approach has contributed to advances in security imaging seen at airports, materials diagnostics, and next-generation wireless research. Recent experimental terahertz systems achieved data rates exceeding 100 gigabits per second, far beyond typical consumer wireless speeds.

Terahertz modulation is only one expression of CINT’s broader vision. Across the Center, researchers have applied the same integration of modeling, fabrication, and measurement to problems ranging from quantum dots to structural materials. Victor Klimov and Jennifer Hollingsworth engineered quantum dots whose optical gain and emission can be tuned with atomic precision, advancing solar technologies, microelectronics, and quantum information science. Other Los Alamos teams designed nanoscale defect architectures to strengthen materials and built atom-scale emitters matched to fiber-optic telecommunications bands. Each effort differs in application, but they share a methodology enabled by CINT: design at the nanoscale, fabricate precisely, measure rigorously, iterate quickly.

“We wanted to understand the materials and then design them to do the thing that we wanted them to do,” Taylor says. The science has advanced since the early days of terahertz modulators. The ambition remains the same: to design matter itself.

For more information: Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Nikhil Bajaj’s $649K NSF CAREER Award reverses the design process for devices from microsensors to aircraft wings

Nikhil Bajaj, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering, studies nonlinear systems that shift behavior once a threshold is crossed—phenomena seen across disciplines in devices that rely on bifurcation to enhance sensitivity and performance. He has received a $649,684 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to rethink how these systems are designed, moving away from trial-and-error tuning toward an approach that starts with a desired behavior and engineers backward. His framework targets applications such as micro-electro-mechanical systems, including ultrasensitive gas leak detectors capable of identifying hazardous compounds at parts-per-billion levels, as well as energy harvesters and aerospace structures.

In a system with bifurcations, a quantitative change produces a qualitative one: a change in the value of the input changes the type of outcome. Once a certain threshold is met, the system doesn’t do more of what it was doing; it instead does something different. For example, a somewhat flexible column loaded with heavier and heavier weights will compress more and more, but once a specific load is placed on it, it will move in a different way, bulging out to one side or buckling.

Today, researchers can characterize these kinds of systems using a lot of trial and error and analogies to previous systems. “Say I’m building a car, and I want it to have 400 horsepower,” Bajaj said. If he didn’t know how to hit that number, he might take any engine and keep tweaking it, tightening something here, disconnecting a part there, until it worked. And horsepower is an easy case, a smooth dial you can turn up or down. The challenge multiplies when the goal is a threshold behavior: getting a system to switch into a new kind of motion at exactly the right input, and not a moment before.

“Designing in bifurcation behavior can feel a bit like working in the dark,” Bajaj said. Even so, the field has made remarkable progress. Across nonlinear systems, libraries of relationships have accumulated for many decades as researchers test inputs and observe outputs via theory and experiment. They’ve found that systems with bifurcations of all kinds (a wing vibrating erratically at speed, a material buckling under pressure, a neuron firing in the brain) seem to be governed by similar principles. The equations aren’t identical, but when systems engineers compare notes, they find meaningful similarities behind the different variables and outputs.

“We play the same mathematical games, just on different fields,” Bajaj said. At a nonlinear dynamics conference, he might have a specific engineering question on his mind. “But then I could run into someone doing the same thing on a biological system and I think, ‘I can use their method to apply to my problem.’”

The award also supports an education plan that spans the length of the pipeline. Bajaj will carry the science of nonlinear behavior (the buckling and the sudden shifts that turn up everywhere from bridges to neurons) to K–12 students and the public through science center and library exhibits, and will fold the same design methods into undergraduate and graduate coursework. A layered mentorship model reaching students at different stages aims to broaden participation in STEM, giving newcomers both a way in and a reason to stay.

Bajaj will use his CAREER Award to develop a unified computational framework for designing nonlinear systems from a desired behavior, rather than discovering their behavior through trial and error. “I want to pick all my parameters, all the knobs I can turn, so that it does the things I want it to do and not necessarily the things that are undesirable.” The framework is intentionally general; he will demonstrate the approaches on small and large scales, from MEMS gas sensors at the micrometer scale to flutter in aircraft wings.

For more information: U.S. National Science Foundation

Team builds best-performing detection system for next-generation accelerators

Physicists at UC Santa Cruz and partner institutions in California and New Mexico have developed a new detection system designed to improve next-generation particle accelerators, enabling more precise studies of fundamental biological and chemical processes and supporting advances in materials science and energy research. The effort, led by the Advanced Accelerator Diagnostics Collaboration, which includes two University of California campuses and three U.S. national laboratories, addresses the growing need for high-rate beam diagnostics as accelerator performance increases from 120 pulses per second to as many as 1 million pulses per second, a jump that strains existing diagnostic systems.

“It really highlights the power of collaboration between universities and national laboratories,” said Bruce Schumm, the Long Family Professor of Experimental Physics. “If you took away Lawrence Berkeley Lab, if you took away Los Alamos, if you took away UC Davis, any of those, the whole thing would have fallen apart.”

The fruits of this years-long collaboration are nothing less than the best-performing high-bandwidth particle detection system built to date. The system combines artificial diamonds, custom microchips, and cutting-edge assembly techniques into a compact detector designed for measuring the properties of the beams shot by advanced accelerators like the Linac Coherent Light Source II at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park.

Need for speed

As next-generation particle accelerators continue to develop, they will have faster and faster bursts of charged particles that are close to each other in time. This means the researchers using them will need to create new, faster ways to measure these beams and control their properties.

“Nobody was building things that can measure, diagnose the beams and help control the accelerator, and also help the experimenters to unravel the data,” said Schumm.

At these high rates of beam repetition—eventually reaching beyond one billion times per second—existing detection systems fail. To overcome that barrier, the Advanced Accelerator Diagnostics Collaboration set out to redesign the entire detection chain from the sensor material itself, to the electronics used to read out the signal.

“It required developing a new approach to processing the signal, and also a new integrated circuit chip that we designed ourselves and then characterized,” said Schumm. “This is the first time we put it all together and put it into a beam.”

For more information: Physical Review Accelerators and Beams

Image: The detection system along with associated hardware for electronic conditioning and control. Photo by Carolyn Lagattuta.

UCLA researchers refine use of graphene oxide for stronger, more durable concrete

A UCLA-led study shows that adding graphene oxide, a carbon-based nanomaterial, to cement mixtures can produce stronger, more durable concrete, with performance driven more by even distribution than by quantity. Researchers found that ultrasonic treatment improves dispersion and delivers early strength gains at lower dosages, while controlled use of polymer surfactants helps enhance long-term strength by refining pore structures and reducing microcracks. The findings suggest practical ways to use less cement and lower carbon dioxide emissions tied to cement production.

Concrete is the world’s most widely used building material. Cement, the binding ingredient in concrete, accounts for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions. Enhancing the efficiency of cement use is therefore essential, as it would reduce the amount needed to build infrastructure — including buildings, roads and bridges — and help lower overall emissions. Graphene-enhanced concrete could last longer and require fewer repairs because stronger concrete cracks less easily and better resists water intrusion and corrosion, which in turn can increase its service life.

Researchers have known for more than a decade that adding graphene oxide to cementitious mixtures can increase concrete’s mechanical performance. However, earlier approaches produced inconsistent results, limiting suitability for commercial use.

To address this challenge, the UCLA team first dispersed graphene oxide powder in water and used ultrasound — the same type of technology found in inexpensive jewelry cleaners — to break up clumps and create a uniform mixture. They then added a moderate amount of polycarboxylate ether, or PCE, a common polymer additive that improves the mixture’s fluidity without adding extra water. This optimized sequence controls the exposed surface area of graphene oxide, thereby delivering strength gains at very low dosages, as little as 0.01% by mass of cement.

Graphene oxide is a nanomaterial derived from graphite and composed of carbon sheets one atom thick. In laboratory tests, adding graphene oxide to cementitious formulations using the optimized process improved the compressive strength by up to 25% after 28 days. The porosity was also significantly reduced by up to 50% as graphene oxide bridged microcracks, resulting in a denser structure.

“This study provides a comprehensive mechanistic framework to combine ultrasound processing, particle dispersants and small additions of graphene oxide to improve the performance of concrete,” said study co-corresponding author Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the Pritzker Professor of Sustainability at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering. The breakthrough builds on a long-term collaboration between Sant and co-corresponding author Richard Kaner, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, through UCLA’s Institute for Carbon Management.

“Our group has spent nearly 20 years refining the synthesis and processing of graphene oxide, and more than a decade working with industry partners to scale production with consistently high quality,” said Maher El-Kady, a researcher working with Kaner. “It’s exciting to see that long-term effort culminate in a study with such clear societal relevance.”

The study’s first author is UCLA postdoctoral researcher Zhi Wan. The other co-corresponding authors are Torben Gädt, chair for the chemistry of construction materials at the Technical University of Munich, and Samanvaya Srivastava, a UCLA associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. Additional UCLA authors include postdoctoral scholar Rui Xiao and chemical and biomolecular engineering graduate student Vihar Trada. Arizona State University researchers Sahil Surehali, a postdoctoral scientist, and Narayanan Neithalath, a professor of sustainable engineering, are also authors on the study.

At UCLA, Kaner holds the Dr. Myung Ki Hong Endowed Chair in Materials Innovation and has a joint appointment in materials science and engineering at UCLA Samueli. Sant is the director of the Institute for Carbon Management and holds a joint appointment in materials science and engineering. Both are faculty members with the California NanoSystems Institute.

For more information:  ACS Applied Engineering Materials

Image: Cement test samples (3-centimeter cubes) containing graphene oxide.

USC researchers develop 3D-printable MRI coils for low-cost, improved dynamic imaging

Diseases affecting moving organs such as the heart and lungs require dynamic imaging rather than static scans, yet limitations in current MRI technology often hinder early detection and diagnosis. Traditional MRI sensors are costly, rigid, and unable to conform closely to the body, reducing image quality and flexibility. To address this, researchers at the University of Southern California developed a low-cost, silver-ink MRI coil that can be 3D printed in under 10 minutes for patient-specific use. The coil costs about $30 in materials — significantly less than traditional models — and delivers up to four times higher image resolution, improving access to more reliable dynamic imaging.

USC researchers, Yasser Khan and Krishna Nayak teamed up to develop a new silver-ink based MRI coil that costs about $30 in consumable materials, compared with at least thousands of dollars for industry-standard coils, and delivers up to four times higher image resolution. The coils can also be 3D printed in real time in under 10 minutes, enabling patient-specific customization.

The study has removed key barriers in dynamic imaging and represents a major breakthrough in MRI technology, with broad applications in clinical settings such as pediatrics and cardiology.

The work was made possible by bringing together two researchers from USC Viterbi School of Engineering and USC Mark and Mary Stevens School of Computing with expertise in wearable sensors for precision health and MRI imaging: Khan, an assistant professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and with joint appointments in the Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering, who leads Khan Lab; and Nayak, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, also with a joint appointment in biomedical engineering, who leads the Dynamic Imaging Science Center (DISC). The research was also spearheaded by Félix Muñoz, a student they co-advised, as well as Ye Tian, a research assistant professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The team also included Prof. Min-gu Kim, an assistant professor of medical engineering at Yonsei University in Korea.

John Wood, a close collaborator from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, emphasized that this is a game-changer, noting that MRI screening is a platform technology essential for detecting undiagnosed conditions in patients, including children and infants. He added that coil sensors play a critical role in diagnostic accuracy and clinical decision-making.

Expensive and Low-resolution MRI Scanners

Like cameras that detect light waves to form images, MRI scanners process and create images or videos using radiofrequency (RF) signals.

The visual data is made possible with MRI “coils,” which are specialized antennas placed close to the bohiiidy part being imaged to detect weak radiofrequency signals emitted by tissues, acting as the receiver for producing high-resolution images.

In the MRI world, the equivalent of camera resolution is called signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). To capture motion in MRI scans, specialized low-field MRI (0.55T) is used to enable dynamic, real-time imaging of motion-intensive processes by leveraging reduced susceptibility artifacts and faster data acquisition.

However, capturing video is particularly difficult at low magnetic field strengths (0.55T) because the signal is inherently weaker, which leads to lower SNR, and consequently lower resolution. Low SNR reduces image quality, making it more difficult for physicians to make accurate clinical assessments.

Today’s standard commercialized coils face many challenges, with low comformity being the biggest limitation. Current coils, typically made of copper, are rigid and follow a one-size-fits-all design. They cannot maintain the close contact required to recover enough signal for high-quality, video-rate imaging. The closer the sensors are to the signal source, the clearer the “picture,” and the closer a coil is to the anatomy, the better the resolution because proximity increases signal strength.

Existing MRI coil arrays are also expensive, priced between $10,000 and $50,000 each.

These high costs are driven by complex manufacturing processes, proprietary markups and rigid, specialized construction that can take significant time to produce. This cost and manufacturing complexity reinforce rigid designs as the commercial standard, making personalization difficult and continuing to limit imaging accuracy.

The limitations of current MRI technologies heavily affect babies and children, as Wood explained that existing coils are designed for adults and then scaled down for children, a process that often fails to accommodate the rapid anatomical changes in growing infants. This sizing mismatch makes MRI screening less accurate in pediatric patients. He also noted that “an infant’s heart can be as small as a walnut,” requiring a coil that is equally small and well-fitted to produce accurate results—something that current, non-customizable coil designs cannot adequately provide.

Silver-based MRI coils as solution: Flexible as human skin and engineered for higher SNR

In the study, Khan’s team aims to tackle the low SNR problem by designing coils that better fit the skin, allowing sensors to be closer to the body.

The lab first experimented with innovative materials that could maintain strong signal performance while being flexible enough to conform to the body like human skin—a longstanding challenge in MRIs for dynamic imaging.

A major limitation with flexible or printed conductors is that they typically have lower conductivity than solid copper, which introduces resistive losses and reduces signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). On the other hand, current industry-standard copper coils lack the flexibility needed to maintain close contact with the body. As high conductivity is key for strong SNR, most flexible materials have historically failed to deliver imaging performance comparable to copper.

Khan’s lab identified silver as an optimal material as it offers conductivity comparable to copper while enabling flexibility when printed onto soft, rubber-like substrates such as thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). The researchers tested various silver inks and selected one formulation, FS0142, that achieved approximately 95% of the signal efficiency of a standard solid copper coil—the first time researchers are able to successfully address the conductivity challenge while maintaining flexibility for dynamic imaging at lower field.

The silver ink is combined with a specialized binder that makes it stretchable, allowing the printed coil to stretch between 5% and 10%, closely matching the natural stretchability of human skin. This enables the coils to wrap tightly around complex anatomical structures, such as the wrist, while maintaining consistent contact.

These new coils, which are as soft and stretchable as human skin, overcome the longstanding tradeoff between rigidity and conductivity. By ensuring a conformal interface where the coil remains in constant contact with the body, the design can effectively replace traditional copper coils while significantly improving imaging performance.

The $30 Breakthrough: 3D-Printed Coils That Are Customizable in Under 10 Minutes

The new coils are also drastically cheaper in both material cost and manufacturing, dropping the price of a standard coil from as much as $50,000 to about $120 per coil.

Muñoz explained that this is partly because the quantity of material needed per coil in his team’s study is extremely small, bringing the consumable cost to roughly $30 per element, despite silver being an expensive and precious metal.

The other key aspect contributing to the low cost is the lab’s automated workflow, which enables coils to be completely 3D printed. Unlike traditional coil manufacturing, which requires complex machinery, proprietary processes and intricate assembly steps that are costly, labor-intensive, the new coils introduced in the study can be produced in as little as eight minutes per element.

These coils are designed using standard Gerber files—the same format used to manufacture circuit boards—allowing for a fully digital workflow. By using automated tools such as the Voltera NOVA printer, a direct-ink-write system, the need for manual routing or complex housing assembly is eliminated, enabling rapid digital fabrication.

This innovation not only reduces cost but also expands the potential for MRI to become more accessible, instead of a limited, high-cost resource. The simple, low-cost, real-time production of these coils allows for on-demand manufacturing tailored to specific patients or body parts, further addressing the longstanding challenge in customization. This makes it possible to create coils of varying sizes, including those small enough for infants.

Because the coils are inexpensive and can be analyzed using low-cost, portable tools, the technology could expand access to high-quality MRI in rural or resource-limited settings worldwide.

At USC, New Coils Meet the World’s Only Low-Field High-Performance MRI System

This work was made possible through a unique collaboration at the University of Southern California, where the newly developed coils could be directly tested on a rare high-performance low-field MRI system—creating an environment that enables proprietary research, innovation and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

A key advantage is the close partnership between Yasser Khan’s lab, which developed the coils, and the Dynamic Imaging Science Center. The center houses a highly specialized MRI scanner: a 0.55 T low-field prototype, a modified 1.5 T Siemens MAGNETOM Aera system, that is now the only one of its kind still operating in the world.

The scanner at DISC offers several technical advantages that make it an ideal match for the new flexible coil technology. Its advanced gradient system enables extremely fast scans, which are essential for capturing high-quality, video-rate dynamic imaging. At the same time, like most low-field MRI systems, the scanner at DISC suffers from lower signal. The flexible coils developed in this study address that limitation by improving signal capture and image quality.

What’s Next: Clinical Use and Patient Testing

The study’s MRI coils have generated strong interest among physicians. Khan said the team’s goal is to move the coils from the lab into clinical settings, with patient testing as a key next step.

Nayak identified pediatric lung imaging as a likely first clinical application to be tested, with John Wood expressing strong interest in eventually adopting the technology for patient care.

“It starts with a signal,” Wood emphasized, noting that regardless of the medical condition, the diagnostic process begins with signal and image quality. He said the study introduces significantly improved signal strength, which could enhance MRI as a platform technology across many diseases and help physicians make more accurate clinical judgments.

Wood emphasized that the technology could be especially impactful for the smallest and most fragile patients, including premature infants. An infant’s heart is extremely small and beats rapidly, making it traditionally difficult to image. Improving signal by bringing the “lens”—the coil—closer to the body allows for clearer visualization of these tiny, fast-moving structures. Screening is a critical first step in identifying conditions in infants, who are more vulnerable to heart and lung diseases or structural abnormalities that require accurate imaging.

Wood also envisions new diagnostic pathways for common infant conditions, including monitoring lung development in bronchopulmonary dysplasia, evaluating swallowing function to prevent aspiration, and studying gastrointestinal malformations.

Muñoz also highlighted applications in wrist injuries, which require clear dynamic imaging of moving joints to identify conditions. In testing, the team’s wrist coil arrays achieved four times higher contrast and five times greater sharpness than commercial coils, allowing clinicians to resolve fine structures such as carpal ligaments that were previously difficult to see.

While the coils were developed to address challenges in dynamic imaging, Wood sees broader applications in standard, still-image MRI scans across a range of clinical settings.

For more information: Nature Communications

Image: The study’s new MRI coils. (Photo Credit: USC Khan Lab)

Researchers measure giant light-conversion effect in chiral carbon nanotubes

A sheet of twisted carbon nanotubes has revealed a long-suspected but previously unmeasured capability, as researchers at Rice University created highly ordered films of chiral nanotubes — carbon cylinders with left- or right-handed twists — that can convert the color of light at rates two to three orders of magnitude greater than conventional materials. The findings confirm decades-old theoretical predictions and suggest ultrathin nanotube films could advance faster optical communications, flexible photonic chips and light-based computing systems that largely remain in early stages.

Since their discovery in the 1990s, carbon nanotubes have been touted as carriers of enormous technological potential due to their tunable conductivity, high mechanical strength, flexibility and ultralow weight. However, they are also difficult to purify and align into larger material architectures.

This holds true for chiral CNTs, whose “handedness” makes them especially difficult to work with.

“Typically, when we have a macroscopic ensemble of carbon nanotubes, half of them are right-handed and the other half are left-handed,” said Junichiro Kono, a senior researcher on the study. “So, their chiral properties cancel each other out.”

That cancellation effect has prevented researchers from measuring one of the material’s most anticipated properties, second harmonic generation (SHG), which occurs when two light waves pass through a material and combine into one new wave with twice the frequency and half the wavelength. For example, due to SHG, two infrared light waves invisible to the human eye can be converted into visible light.

“Theory predicts chiral CNT should be particularly good at such conversion,” said Hanyu Zhu, a Rice materials scientist who led the study alongside Kono. “However, no one was able to quantify this ability because it requires high-quality, pure chiral CNT crystal.”

The Rice-led team solved that challenge by isolating nanotubes with a single handedness – a step carried out by the group of Kazuhiro Yanagi at Tokyo Metropolitan University – aligning them in the same direction and assembling them into thin films spanning several centimeters.

“We successfully made a wafer of film packed closely with chiral CNTs that showed uniform optical properties,” said Kono, director of the Smalley-Curl Institute at Rice and Karl F. Hasselmann Professor in Engineering, professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering, and physics and astronomy.

When illuminated with laser pulses, the chiral CNT films produced a “giant” SHG response thanks to their one-dimensional structure, where “one-dimensional” describes materials with two dimensions on the order of a nanometer and a third, much larger, dimension that gives rise to wire- or tubelike architectures.

This structure intensifies interactions between light and matter, particularly through coupled electron-hole states known as excitons. The importance of excitons in the SHG process was theorized by two team members, Vasili Perebeinos at the University at Buffalo and Riichiro Saito at Tohoku University.

“For the first time, we were able to make a more accurate prediction of one-dimensional second-order nonlinear optical response and experimentally demonstrated it,” said Zhu, associate chair and professor of materials science and nanoengineering.

SHG already plays an important role in laser technology and optoelectronic systems. The stronger the SHG effect is, the smaller the devices can be to control and convert light for technology. Chiral CNTs not only outperform materials currently in use in terms of SHG, but they are also flexible, widening the range of applications they could serve.

“CNT is a promising flexible semiconductor for electronics and photonics,” Zhu said. “The film may be easily integrated with silicon photonics for optical information processing and communication.”

For more information: ACS Nano

Image: Hanyu Zhu is the William Marsh Rice Chair and associate professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

Steel developed at MIT is key to Formula One

A high-performance steel developed at MIT has come full circle, moving from success in Formula One and Baja 1000 race cars to its latest use in the 2026 electric race car built by the student-run MIT Motorsports team. The computationally designed material is now part of the university’s entry in the Formula SAE Electric competition, where the car is set to compete against teams from other universities in June.

Designing materials

Gregory B. Olson, professor of the practice in the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering, founded the MIT Steel Research Group (SRG) in 1985 with the goal of using computers to accelerate the hunt for new materials by plumbing databases of those materials’ fundamental properties. It was the beginning of a new field — computational materials design — that would eventually lead to the Materials Genome Initiative, a national program announced by President Barack Obama in 2011.

In 1985, however, “nobody knew whether we could really do this,” says Olson. Olson and colleagues eventually showed that the approach worked, and around 1990 the Army Research Office funded an SRG project aimed at developing high-performance steels for the gears in helicopters. That work came to the attention of producers at “Infinite Voyage,” a science documentary that ran on the Public Broadcasting System.

“When “Infinite Voyage” came to see me about the helicopter gear steels,” Olson remembers, “we got into a discussion about my interest in race cars” and whether the steels might have an application there.

The answer was yes, and Olson found himself connecting with the Newman/Haas racing team that Michael and Mario Andretti were driving for. Newman/Haas was also featured in the “Infinite Voyage” program, so “my first discussion with their chief engineer was on live television,” says Olson, who is also affiliated with the MIT Materials Research Laboratory.

He and colleagues went on to design a novel gear steel that could withstand the extreme conditions associated with a race car. They did the work over a weekend. “The surface hardness was the same as for a conventional gear steel, but we gave it the core properties of an armor steel,” Olson says.

Introducing Ferrium C61

That steel, which became known as Ferrium C61, was commercialized through QuesTek Innovations, the materials-design company Olson co-founded. It became the company’s first product.

Although it was never used in Newman/Haas cars, QuesTek pitched it to Baja 1000 off-road racers.

“We particularly focused on the 1600 class of those racing dune buggies. They would go flying over a sand dune with the wheels spinning in the air. And when they land, there would be a tremendous jolt to the drive gears,” Olson says. The result: The racers’ gears made with conventional steel regularly failed.

“The average life for conventional drive gears was point-six race,” says Olson (meaning on average they lasted for only 60 percent of a race). “With Ferrium C61, we changed it from point-six to six races.” The gears could now complete an average six races before failing.

QuesTek brought that data to meetings with different Formula One teams “to try to get C61 into other racing classes,” Olson says.

Enter Red Bull, the British-licensed Formula One team. “The leading mechanical failure in Formula One racing is gearbox failures,” Olsen says. The gearbox houses the gearset, or collection of gears, in a car’s engine. “Once Red Bull adopted our steel for the gearset, they never had any gearbox failures, and they were world champions four times in the last decade.”

MIT Motorsports heard of this history and within the past year approached Olson about getting a sample of C61. “QuesTek had some stock available, and sold it at a high discount to the MIT team with, of course, instructions on how to heat-treat it,” Olson says.

Because, of course, the students, who are mostly undergraduates, made the gears — and the car — themselves.

For more information: MIT

Image: Gearset for the 2026 race car made by the MIT Motorsports team. It is made of a high-performance steel with MIT origins. CreditsPhoto courtesy of MIT Motorsports.

Wallwork doubles aerospace HIP capacity with second Quintus hot isostatic press

Wallwork Group, Manchester, England, installed a second Quintus Technologies hot isostatic press (HIP) at its UK operations, doubling the company’s HIP capacity for aerospace customers and strengthening process continuity across the UK and European supply chain. The investment will be a centerpiece of the company’s presence at Farnborough International Airshow 2026 (Hall 1, Stand 1000, July 20–24), where Wallwork will showcase how the expanded HIP capability combines with one of the industry’s most comprehensive portfolios of NADCAP- and AS9100-accredited thermal processing and hard coating services. “Farnborough 2026 is the ideal platform to show how Wallwork is investing in the future of aerospace manufacturing,” said Simeon Collins, group director at Wallwork. “Our second Quintus HIP significantly expands capacity for customers, while our full range of accredited thermal processing, surface engineering, and brazing services gives manufacturers a dependable single-source partner.” HIP is a critical post-process for high-integrity aerospace components — particularly castings, additive-manufactured parts, and powder-metallurgy products — closing internal voids and improving tensile strength and fatigue performance in turbine and compressor blades, blisks, disks, structural casings, and engine parts. Wallwork is the United Kingdom’s largest independent aerospace thermal processing and hard coatings specialist, with over 60 years of industry experience, ITAR compliance, major aerospace prime approvals, and operations across Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham, and Cambridge. Quintus Technologies, headquartered in Västerås, Sweden, is the global leader in high-pressure technology for hot isostatic pressing, sheet metal forming, and high-pressure processing.

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Bodycote opens new heat treatment facility in Monterrey, Mexico

Bodycote, Macclesfield, England, plans to open a new heat treatment facility in Apodaca, in the Monterrey metropolitan area of Mexico. The new site will expand Bodycote’s North American footprint and provide additional regional capacity to support customers across Mexico and the southern United States, helping reduce logistics complexity and strengthen supply-chain resilience for OEMs and tier suppliers operating in the region’s automotive, aerospace, and industrial markets. The Apodaca facility will offer precision heat treatment capabilities including case hardening and nitriding processes such as carburizing, carbonitriding, and nitrocarburizing, technologies widely used to improve wear resistance, fatigue performance, and dimensional stability in critical drivetrain, gearing, and structural components. The new site complements Bodycote’s existing North American network and reflects continued investment by the group in geographic capacity expansion and customer-proximate service. Bodycote is the world’s largest provider of heat treatment and specialist thermal processing services, operating more than 165 facilities across 22 countries with capabilities spanning vacuum heat treatment, hot isostatic pressing, surface engineering, and advanced thermal processing technologies. The company serves a broad customer base across aerospace, automotive, defense, energy, medical, and general industrial markets, and continues to invest in both new geographies and decarbonized process technologies to support its customers’ performance and sustainability goals.

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SECO/WARWICK USA delivers second vacuum tempering furnace to aerospace manufacturer

SECO/WARWICK USA, Meadville, Pa., announced that a leading international aircraft motion-control manufacturer has placed a repeat order for an identical low-temperature vacuum tempering furnace, following the success of the first unit installed at the customer’s facility. The new furnace is designed for tempering, ageing, and other sub-critical heat-treat processes, with a maximum operating temperature of 1380°F, a 24-by-24-by-36-in. work zone, and a load capacity of 1750 pounds. It meets AMS2750F Class 2 temperature uniformity requirements (±10°F) and supports nitrogen convection heating and cooling, with final cooling handled by an internal recirculation blower and a water-cooled heat exchanger. The repeat unit adds to the customer’s existing SECO/WARWICK installed base, which includes multi-chamber CaseMaster Evolution furnaces in double- and triple-chamber configurations and a Vector single-chamber high-pressure gas-quench vacuum furnace deployed across multiple sites. “This customer’s continued investment in SECO/WARWICK equipment reflects their trust in the quality and reliability required for aerospace applications,” said Piotr Zawistowski, managing director of SECO/WARWICK USA. “Their repeat business underscores the strength of our technology and our long-term customer relationships.” SECO/WARWICK Group is a global manufacturer of vacuum and atmosphere heat-treatment equipment, with headquarters in Świebodzin, Poland, and US operations based in Meadville, Pennsylvania, serving aerospace, automotive, medical, energy, and tool steel markets.

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Norman Noble adds engineering design services for medical implants

Norman Noble, Inc., Highland Heights, Ohio, announced in February 2026 the addition of engineering design services to its medical-implant manufacturing portfolio. The new offering supports customers developing implantable devices that require advanced laser machining of nitinol, cobalt-chromium, titanium, and other high-performance alloys, and lets device makers partner with Norman Noble at the earliest stages of product development.

Through the engineering design service, Norman Noble’s team works with customers on drawing specifications, design for manufacturability, prototyping strategy, and process development with the goal of moving from concept to validated prototype faster than is typical with sequential outsourcing. The capability builds on the company’s existing offerings in laser machining, athermal Noble STEALTH laser processing, Noble SynchroFlash, and Noble DryEPolish surface finishing — all of which are already used across the cardiovascular, structural heart, neurovascular, and orthopedic implant markets.

By adding upfront design support, Norman Noble strengthens its position as a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) for complex implantable devices. The expansion reflects increasing customer demand for integrated end-to-end partners that can carry a device from early concept through validated production, particularly for nitinol implants where design choices and manufacturing methods are tightly coupled.

Norman Noble, Inc. is a privately held precision contract manufacturer headquartered in Highland Heights, Ohio. The company specializes in laser machining and finishing of nitinol and other implant-grade alloys, and supports the development and manufacture of finished medical implants for global medical device customers.

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FDA approves JenaValve Trilogy transcatheter heart valve for aortic regurgitation

JenaValve Technology, Irvine, California, received U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval on March 23, 2026 for the Trilogy Heart Valve System for the treatment of symptomatic severe aortic regurgitation in patients deemed at high or greater risk for surgical aortic valve replacement. Trilogy is the first and only transcatheter heart valve approved in the United States for aortic regurgitation, addressing a long-standing unmet need in structural heart medicine.

The Trilogy device is a self-expanding, transcatheter aortic valve implant built on a low-profile nitinol frame with porcine pericardial tissue leaflets. The device’s locator architecture is designed to engage the native aortic leaflets to provide secure anchoring in regurgitant anatomy that lacks the calcified landing zone typically used for transcatheter valves indicated for aortic stenosis.

The approval is supported by the ALIGN-AR pivotal trial, which evaluated Trilogy in patients with symptomatic severe aortic regurgitation at prohibitive or high surgical risk. The trial demonstrated meaningful reductions in regurgitation severity at one year alongside acceptable safety endpoints, providing the first prospective evidence base for a dedicated AR transcatheter device in the United States.

JenaValve Technology develops transcatheter heart valve systems for the treatment of aortic regurgitation and aortic stenosis. The company is privately held and headquartered in Irvine, California.

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Gore gains FDA approval for first deep venous stent indicated for the IVC and iliofemoral veins

W. L. Gore & Associates, Newark, Delaware, announced on January 6, 2026 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the GORE VIABAHN FORTEGRA Venous Stent for the treatment of deep venous disease in the inferior vena cava (IVC), iliac, and iliofemoral veins. The device is the first stent approved in the United States for the IVC and iliofemoral indication, and previously received FDA Breakthrough Device designation.

The FORTEGRA Venous Stent (formerly the GORE VIAFORT Vascular Stent) consists of an open-structure, self-expanding wire-wound nitinol frame and an expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) polymer lattice. The combination is designed to balance conformability to the natural venous anatomy with compression resistance throughout the entire device length, while the wound nitinol architecture supports fracture resistance under the dynamic mechanical loading characteristic of large-vein anatomy.

Approval was supported by an international pivotal trial that evaluated 89 patients with deep venous disease across the IVC, iliac, and iliofemoral veins. The device met its primary safety and effectiveness endpoints and demonstrated patency, freedom from clinically driven reintervention, and safety performance consistent with a first-line venous stent indication.

W. L. Gore & Associates is a privately held global manufacturing company founded in 1958 and headquartered in Newark, Delaware. Its medical products division supplies cardiovascular, vascular, structural heart, and surgical solutions in more than 50 countries and has served the deep venous disease space through prior peripheral and arteriovenous platforms.

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Confluent Medical opens Nitinol Wire Center of Excellence in Hyderabad, India

Confluent Medical Technologies, Fremont, California, announced the opening of its Nitinol Wire Center of Excellence in Hyderabad, India on May 4, 2026 — the opening day of the SMST 2026 Conference and Exposition in La Jolla. The new 26,000-square-foot facility doubles the company’s nitinol wire output and provides a dedicated location for nitinol wire manufacturing, allowing Confluent’s Fremont, California, location to focus on nitinol tubing.

The facility is ISO 13485 compliant and offers four-week lead times for wire diameters from 0.004 in. to 0.100 in., with ultra-tight tolerances down to ±0.0002 in. The investment is the latest step in a multi-year program to vertically integrate Confluent’s nitinol supply chain, which already includes melt and conversion partnerships, premium tubing, drawn wire, components, and finished medical-device assemblies.

“Opening our Nitinol Wire Center of Excellence in Hyderabad marks an important milestone in Confluent’s continued investment in a resilient, vertically integrated nitinol supply chain,” said Dean Schauer, chief executive officer, president, and chairman of Confluent Medical Technologies. “This facility expands our global manufacturing capacity and strengthens our ability to support the industry with the highest quality of nitinol material.”

Confluent Medical Technologies is a global contract development and manufacturing organization specializing in nitinol components and complex medical device assemblies. The company serves cardiovascular, structural heart, neurovascular, peripheral vascular, and other minimally invasive markets, with manufacturing operations in Fremont, California, and now Hyderabad, India.

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One Minute Mentor: Austenitizing of Water-Hardening Tool Steels

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

Constellium signs multi-year aluminum extrusions agreement with Airbus

Constellium, Issoire, France, announced a multi-year agreement with Airbus for the supply of aluminum alloy extrusions, reinforcing the company’s role as a long-term supplier of advanced aluminum solutions to the European airframer’s commercial and defense programs. Under the agreement, Constellium will provide Airbus with bars and a range of small and large extrusions manufactured in advanced aluminum alloys, including the company’s proprietary aluminum-lithium solution Airware®, all engineered to meet stringent quality requirements and optimized for the strength-to-weight performance demanded by aircraft structural applications. The extrusions will be produced at Constellium’s Issoire and Montreuil-Juigné facilities in France. “This agreement reflects Airbus’ trust in our advanced aluminum products and solutions, and in our quality performance, industrial reliability, and consistent supply continuity to support long-term aerospace programs,” said Philippe Hoffmann, president of Constellium’s Aerospace and Transportation business unit. “We are committed to continuing to grow our outstanding relationship with Airbus, leveraging our comprehensive product portfolio, proprietary solutions, unique manufacturing capabilities, and recycling expertise.” Constellium is a leading supplier of advanced aluminum products and solutions to the global aircraft, defense, and space markets, with proven industrial and recycling capabilities and an extensive portfolio of high-performance alloys, including the heat-treatable Airware® family used in next-generation airframe structures.

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Scientists uncover hidden superconductivity in material once thought only magnetic

A new study shows that iron telluride, or FeTe, long thought to be a simple magnetic metal, is actually a superconductor when excess iron atoms are removed. Superconductors carry electricity with no energy loss as heat, enabling technologies such as MRI machines, particle accelerators and potentially quantum computers. Researchers found that extra iron atoms hidden in the material are responsible for its magnetism and suppress superconductivity. Once those atoms are eliminated, electricity flows with zero resistance, and the material’s superconducting properties can be further tuned using layered structures and moiré effects.

The findings are detailed in two papers published back-to-back, both led by Penn State physicist Cui-Zu Chang. The first paper explains how to activate superconductivity in FeTe. The second describes a new type of “quantum dance” in which superconductivity interacts with the material’s atomic structure when a different top layer is added, allowing scientists to adjust its properties.

Mystery Behind FeTe’s Missing Superconductivity

“Unlike the well-known iron-based superconductor iron selenide (FeSe), FeTe has long been considered a magnetic metal without superconductivity, despite having an almost identical crystal structure,” Chang said. “It has remained a mystery why FeTe doesn’t share this important property.”

To investigate this difference, the team created thin films of FeTe using molecular beam epitaxy. This method produces extremely clean, atomically thin materials by slowly depositing source elements onto a suitable surface.

When the researchers examined the samples at the atomic level using scanning tunneling microscopy, they found that the structure was not perfectly uniform. Extra iron atoms were embedded within the crystal lattice of FeTe.

Excess Iron Atoms Disrupt Superconductivity

“These excess iron atoms disrupt the ideal one-to-one ratio of iron and tellurium atoms in FeTe and upset the balance of magnetism and superconductivity,” Chang said, explaining that the researchers theorized that removing the excess atoms to make truly pure FeTe might result in a superconductor.

To test this idea, the researchers developed a way to control the material’s purity by exposing the FeTe films to tellurium vapor. This process offsets the excess iron and pushes the material toward its ideal composition.

“The resulting ideal FeTe exhibits superconductivity with a critical temperature of around 13.5 Kelvin, or about negative 435 degrees Fahrenheit,” Chang said. “The excess iron atoms had disguised its superconductivity, leading to the decades-old view that FeTe was an ordinary magnetic metal. Our findings redefine the phase diagram of this class of iron-containing compounds. Similar phenomena are likely to be present in other correlated materials, where hidden superconducting states or competing magnetic orders remain concealed until disorder is removed or carefully controlled. Understanding the crucial role of disorder will help us to uncover and stabilize such hidden superconducting states in other materials.”

Engineering Superconductivity with Layered Structures

In the second study, after confirming that FeTe is inherently a superconductor, the researchers investigated how its superconducting behavior could be controlled. They built layered structures by placing a thin material with a different crystal lattice on top of FeTe. Because the two materials have different atomic arrangements, they form a larger repeating pattern at their boundary, known as a moiré superlattice.

“The mismatch between the crystal structures at the interface creates what we call a moiré superlattice, which modifies the superconducting properties of FeTe,” Chang said. “In recent years, moiré superlattices in two‑dimensional materials have emerged as an important platform for discovering new quantum states.”

Using scanning tunneling microscopy, which allows imaging at the atomic scale, the team observed that superconductivity appears as a repeating, droplet-like pattern that follows the moiré superlattice, described by the researchers as a “quantum dance.” They also found that this pattern can be tuned by changing the material used in the top layer.

“The role of crystal lattices has often been overlooked in superconductors,” Chang said. “Our findings encourage a renewed focus on the interplay between superconductivity and lattice structure and highlight how moiré interface engineering can serve as a potentially powerful tool for tuning superconductivity and designing next‑generation quantum materials.”

For more information: Nature

Image: A sample of a thin film of the compound iron telluride (FeTe)—the dark region on the clear substrate at the center of the image—created using molecular beam epitaxy. Long thought to be an ordinary magnetic metal, researchers have now shown that exposing the thin film of FeTe to tellurium vapor removes disorder created by excess iron atoms trapped in the crystal structure of the material, revealing that FeTe is a superconductor. Credit: Chang Laboratory/Penn State.