Titomic Limited, Australia, has received a Statement of Qualification from Det Norske Veritas to use its low- and medium-pressure systems for applying protective, corrosion-resistant aluminum coatings in the field for the oil and gas 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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FormFactor, Livermore, Calif., and Keystone Microtech, Taiwan, partnership expands semiconductor probe card manufacturing and test capabilities to support advanced semiconductor applications
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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.
A research team led by Saarland University materials scientist Ralf Busch is preparing its first space-based mission aboard the International Space Station, where researchers will remotely study metallic-glass alloys using hot, levitating droplets in a microgravity environment. Conducted in partnership with the European Space Agency and the German Aerospace Center, the experiments aim to generate highly precise data that could help improve the performance of these advanced materials. The unique weightless conditions aboard the ISS eliminate many of the effects of gravity, allowing scientists to better understand alloy behavior and accelerate the development of new materials, with additional space-based experiments already planned.
Busch is one of the international pioneers in the field of metallic glass. Metallic glasses are metals that solidify like glass. In numerous research projects, many of which were funded by the EU, the German federal government and the DFG, Busch and his team have been developing and refining these novel alloys, which can be tailored to have specific properties. The word ‘glass’ should not be interpreted to mean that a metallic glass is fragile. On the contrary, these alloys are stronger than steel. ‘They are also elastic and at elevated temperatures can be formed like plastics, which means they can be processed using techniques such as injection moulding or metal 3D printing,’ says Ralf Busch. This allows metallic glasses to be shaped into complex geometries of almost any kind, a further active area of research for Busch and his team. His research group at Saarland University already holds several patents for novel, ultra-high-strength alloys with new properties.
The metallic glasses being developed in Saarbrücken are new materials whose properties can be tailored for use in engines and machinery. Examples include new components that make electric motors more energy-efficient, as well as screws and geometrically complex parts that are strong enough to withstand the extreme conditions encountered in aerospace applications.
How metals solidify into glass
These metal alloys are described as glasses because of their internal structure. ‘Conventional metals have a crystalline structure, with their atoms arranged in regular lattices,’ explains Professor Busch. Metallic glasses are different: their internal atomic structure is disordered, just like that of glass. ‘The atoms in metallic glasses are not ordered; these materials are amorphous, like glass,’ explains Busch. To achieve this, the researchers develop alloys that are far less prone to crystallization and in which crystal formation is significantly slowed. This makes it difficult for the atoms to arrange themselves in the ordered patterns needed to form crystals, so the molten metal solidifies with its atoms in a disordered state.
The fact that metals can be made to ‘solidify into glass’, and that these alloys also exhibit the right properties for applications such as metal 3D printing, is the result of many years of research. The atomic composition of these alloys has to be very carefully fine-tuned. ‘It takes years to develop an alloy like this. We design them in a multidimensional compositional space in order to get alloys that crystallize more slowly and that show the right combination of properties,’ explains Busch. For decades, his research has involved collaboration with partners including NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which builds and operates satellites and space probes for NASA, and the German Aerospace Center.
High-strength nickel-based alloys bound for the ISS
The experiments in the space station are scheduled to be carried out from 31 August to 4 September and will focus on nickel-niobium and nickel-niobium-sulfur alloys. Nickel-niobium alloy was first developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, in the United States back in 1967. The nickel-niobium-sulfur alloy comes from Busch’s laboratory on the Saarbrücken campus. By studying the alloys under near-weightless conditions on the ISS, his team aims to broaden scientific understanding of the physical properties of metallic glass. The experiments to be performed on the ISS will examine levitated droplets heated to temperatures of up to 1,700 degrees Celsius, in order to study material properties such as surface tension, viscosity, thermal expansion, supercooling, oscillation behaviour and heat capacity. ‘The alloy is highly reactive, so on the ISS we don’t need a crucible to melt the beads,’ explains Busch. The metallic-glass beads that were specially produced on the Saarbrücken campus by Lucas Ruschel, a former doctoral researcher in Busch’s group, have already been flown to the ISS. They have been certified on the basis of tests carried out on Earth that they pose no risk on board the ISS.
The experiments will be carried out in ESA’s Columbus module, using the Electromagnetic Levitator, EML, which was installed in 2014 by German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst. Lucas Eisenhut, another doctoral student in Ralf Busch’s research group, has a full week of measurement time on the ISS. He will be controlling the experiments from the DLR control centre in Cologne together with Dr. Fan Yang, a senior researcher working towards his habilitation in Ralf Busch’s group in Saarbrücken. ‘The ISS will transmit a live stream of the experiments to the control centre, which enables us to observe what’s happening in real time. We can send commands directly to the levitator on the ISS, which allows us to adjust process parameters and to influence the sample and the experimental conditions,’ explains Lucas Eisenhut.
Why a levitating droplet on Earth is not enough
Preparations for the space tests have been under way for years. The researchers have repeatedly levitated hot droplets of the alloy on Earth: in vacuum, and in electromagnetic and electrostatic fields at DLR in Cologne. At DESY, the German Electron Synchrotron facility, droplets were examined using X-rays. Lucas Ruschel, who completed his doctorate in Busch’s research group, undertook a total of 30 parabolic flights over the Atlantic off the coast of France in a single day in order to study the droplets during brief phases of weightlessness, each lasting around 22 seconds.
For the Saarbrücken research team, however, these short test phases are not long enough and there are too many interference factors that affect measurements on Earth. The conditions in space on the ISS are much better. ‘We expect results significantly more precise than those so far conducted on Earth. Here, the force we need to counteract gravity and keep the droplet in position is far greater than it is on the ISS. Under the near-weightless conditions on the ISS, we only need to apply far smaller forces to keep the droplet stationary – and that is a huge advantage,’ explains Ralf Busch. On Earth, phenomena, such as flow patterns within the droplet, can interfere with the measurement. ‘Another major advantage is the much longer experiment time under near-weightless conditions. On the ISS, we can run several experimental cycles a day, each lasting up to 45 minutes, which gives us several hours of measurement time in total. This makes it possible to conduct more extensive experiments and obtain more meaningful results than during 22-second parabolic flights,’ adds doctoral student Lucas Eisenhut.
The aim is to use the new and hopefully highly precise measurement data to further improve the material and to develop new materials for spaceflight, medical technology, high-performance components and even everyday products. Metallic glass beads made from other alloys have also been developed by Busch’s team and preparations are now under way for testing these materials, such as a palladium-nickel-phosphorus alloy, on a future mission to the ISS.
For more information: Saarland University
Image: Materials scientist Ralf Busch (standing) and doctoral researcher Lucas Eisenhut beside the apparatus used to melt and homogenize the constituent elements of metallic-glass alloys. The alloys for the ISS experiments were also produced here.
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.”
ASM is pleased to announce that Prof. Qing Chen, FASM, of Thermo-Calc Software and KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, is the 2027 J. Willard Gibbs Phase Equilibria Award recipient.
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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.
Researchers at The University of Manchester found that small temperature variations during molten metal deposition, a metal 3D-printing process, can have a significant impact on the quality of aluminum components. The study showed that carefully controlling thermal conditions during printing can reduce microscopic defects and improve the material’s grain structure, helping produce stronger, higher-quality parts while maintaining the process’s potential for lower energy use and more efficient manufacturing of complex components.
Dr Fan Wu and Dr Wajira Mirihanage, co-authors from the Department of Materials at The University of Manchester said: “Understanding how processing conditions affect the internal structure of a printed component is essential if additive manufacturing technologies are to be used more widely in demanding industrial applications. Our study shows that relatively small adjustments in manufacturing temperatures can have a major impact on defect formation and microstructural development.”
Metal additive manufacturing is attracting increasing attention because it can create complex geometries while reducing material waste. However, many existing techniques involve extremely rapid heating and cooling, which can introduce defects, residual stresses and distortions into the finished part. MMD offers a different approach by depositing aluminium that has already been melted, reducing the intensity of thermal cycling experienced during manufacture.
To understand how the process influences material quality, the team produced aluminium alloy samples using different nozzle and substrate temperatures. They then used advanced microscopy techniques to investigate grain structure, crystallographic orientation and the distribution of microscopic pores inside the printed components. Mechanical testing was also carried out to assess performance.
The researchers found that higher nozzle and substrate temperatures slowed cooling during printing. This led to larger grain structures and increased levels of porosity, tiny voids within the material that can affect performance. In contrast, lower processing temperatures promoted faster cooling, resulting in finer grain structures and fewer defects.
The study also revealed that defect levels and grain size generally decreased as printing progressed through successive layers of a component. This suggests that thermal conditions evolve throughout the build process, influencing how the material solidifies over time. The team identified a strong relationship between grain size and porosity, providing valuable insight into how manufacturing parameters shape material quality.
Despite the presence of some defects, the mechanical properties of the printed components were found to be comparable with those achieved using conventional manufacturing routes. The researchers reported hardness and elastic modulus values that fall within the expected range for aluminium alloy 4043, highlighting the practical potential of the technology.
Dr Fan Wu and Dr Wajira Mirihanage added: “Molten metal deposition is still a relatively new manufacturing technology, and there is currently limited understanding of how processing conditions affect the final material. By establishing clear links between processing parameters, microstructure and defect formation, this work provides a foundation for optimising future manufacturing strategies and improving the reliability of aluminium components produced using MMD.”
The researchers believe the findings will help accelerate the development of molten metal deposition for industrial applications where component quality, consistency and efficiency are critical.
MMD has been developed by ValCUN BV, a Belgium based manufacturer focused on developing deployable and affordable metal additive manufacturing.
For more information: Materials & Design
Image: Visualization of the EBSD scan region on the 2D model. Credit: Dr Fan Wu and Dr Wajira Mirihanage, co-authors from the Department of Materials at The University of Manchester
Colorado School of Mines students Austin Arvidson and his team developed the Floating Ultrasonic Synthesis Environment, or FUSE, a system that uses acoustic levitation, or sound waves, to suspend materials in a contact-free environment during synthesis. Designed to accelerate the development of new materials while reducing contamination and errors, the project was supported by the Labriola InnoHub E&I Prototyping Fund, which provides funding, mentorship and resources to help students turn innovative ideas into working prototypes.
“If you look up acoustic levitation, or a lot of stuff similar to what we’re trying to do, there’s really not a whole lot of other scientific literature on it, especially in materials science. There’s sort of that aspect of, I don’t know a whole lot, but also it seems like science also doesn’t know a whole lot,” said Austin Arvidson. “It forces you to learn. You could give up, but why don’t you learn something new?”
Arvidson and his co-inventor, John-Austin Little, met while working together on a vertically-integrated research project focused on studying quantum materials. Their concept is novel: An open-sided container about the size of a 3D printer that could be used as a contactless way to synthesize materials. Instead of using an ampoule or another standard container — which runs the risk of having the samples react with the container material — the open-concept system reduces the risk of contamination. One of the biggest advantages to FUSE is speed. Materials synthesis is a common lab practice, but it usually involves multiple people and a lot of time. FUSE could produce the same results, much faster. Little estimates that one FUSE system could process up to 40 samples a day; when using standard lab practices, the same number of samples could take a fully staffed lab about a week.
All year, Little and Arvidson have been working on their prototype, refining the system and testing it with different materials. Their academic backgrounds are nicely complementary for this project – Little is majoring in engineering physics and Arvidson in metallurgical and materials engineering. And while Little understands how the physics of their system supports material synthesis, Arvidson understands materials and the electronics of the system and works on that aspect.
“We always joke that he’s an MME trying to be a physicist and I’m a physicist trying to be an MME. But it does really make for an awesome team,” Little said.
Both admit they’re not experts on acoustic levitation, but figuring out the challenges of the unknown has been fulfilling. Possibly being the researchers to break new ground is an exciting prospect.
“We’re doing old school science, which means we actually have to discover something by just sort of thinking about it and then messing around and seeing how it goes. It’s fun,” Little said.
What kind of materials would work best in FUSE? Little said anything that requires a heating process can be synthesized in FUSE.
“Really anything in any industry that requires some novel material, whether it’s the computer chips in your laptop and the metal in your car, all of those are sort of open playing fields,” Little said. “Anything that we can either melt or heat and get something useful out is a potential candidate for the system.”
Aerospace is a prime example. Alloys used in that industry need to withstand extreme amounts of heat because of the high temperatures jet fuel can reach. FUSE could be used to combine different materials to create custom alloys that work well under extreme heat without expanding or contracting. Little said he could also see the system being used in the energy industry, creating nuclear fuels or battery materials. The list of possibilities is long.
“No one has really been able to float anywhere near as much weight as we’re theorizing that we can with our models and simulations. They’ve all just been much smaller amounts, like a little small drop of water, or other things like that,” Arvidson said. “How you scale this up to float more mass is still an unanswered question,” Arvidson said.
Little and Arvidson still have time to work on the project while at Mines – both are about to complete their first year of undergraduate studies. They plan on continuing to study acoustic levitation and work further on getting scales they created for FUSE into a standalone product, while also refining and iterating the FUSE system.
Because of the ProtoFund and other E&I resources and support at Mines, they’re off to a strong start. Check-ins with ProtoFund mentors have helped them consider possible uses for FUSE they hadn’t before. The McNeil Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation provided advice on the business aspect of their project and arranged for Little and Arvidson to present their ideas to Mines President Paul C. Johnson and Provost Stefanie Tompkins, as well as other experts.
“It would be impossible to do this without the resources provided by the ProtoFund and the Labriola Innovation Hub,” Little said. “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps is fine, but someone has to show you the bootstrap, and a lot of people have been helping us find those bootstraps. Otherwise, hours and hours of hard work really would just be us banging our head on the wall, and there wouldn’t be all of the eureka moments and the progress.”
For more information: Labriola InnoHub E&I Prototyping Fund
Image: John-Austin Little, left, and Austin Arvidson work on FUSE, a system they created that uses acoustic levitation to synthesize materials.
Researchers have expanded the field of twistronics by developing a method to manufacture oxide twistronic materials at much larger scales while precisely controlling the twist angles between layered materials. Twistronics focuses on how the alignment of two-dimensional materials influences their structural and electronic properties, and this new technique could help advance research and practical applications by making these materials easier to produce and study.
“The field of twistronics was developed using 2D materials that are bonded by weak van der Waals forces,” says Ruijuan Xu, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at North Carolina State University. “Our work here demonstrates it is possible to use layers of oxide materials that are connected by strong chemical bonds—while precisely controlling the twist angle between crystalline oxide membranes.
“The strong interlayer bonding we found between oxide layers suggests there may be entirely new interfacial phenomena to explore,” adds Xu. “We’ve demonstrated the ability to control many of the materials’ characteristics—including phase structure and domain configuration—in ways that offer new routes for designing materials and devices tailored to specific applications.”
For this work, the researchers synthesized crystalline sodium niobate (NaNbO3) membranes and used photolithography to create a set of visual markers along the perimeter of each membrane. One NaNbO3 membrane was then lifted and placed on top of another NaNbO3 membrane. The researchers monitored the alignment of the visual markers during assembly to precisely control the relative twist angle between the two layers. Once they established the desired angle, they performed a material-specific annealing process to establish strong chemical bonding between the layers.
“Scale matters for devices,” says Xu. “Because these crystalline membranes can be fabricated over large areas and transferred onto different supports, this approach provides a practical path toward twist-engineered oxide electronics.”
The researchers also used synchrotron X-ray diffraction techniques to capture what is happening at the interface between the two layers.
“We found that the bonds between the two layers are so strong that they are distorting the atomic structure of the material—creating a gradual rotation of the atomic lattice at the interface between the layers,” says Xu. “We also found changes to the phase structure of the material. It remains to be seen how this will affect material properties, but that’s something we are exploring.”
The researchers note that while this work was done using NaNbO3 as a model, the technique could be extended to other complex oxides.
“Our work demonstrates a technique for creating large-area oxide twistronic materials with controlled twist angles and a strong chemical bond between layers,” says Xu. “It’s an exciting time for oxide twistronics, with new opportunities to engineer complex oxide functionalities through twist.”
For more information: ACS Nano
Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have synthesized highly uniform semiconducting nanotubes just 1 nanometer wide by growing molybdenum disulfide inside protective boron nitride tubes, validating decades-old theoretical predictions and offering a new path for miniaturized electronic devices.
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Gatan Inc., Pleasanton, Calif., a business of AMETEK Inc., has launched the next-generation PECS III and Ilion III ion milling systems to provide high-quality, consistent sample preparation for advanced materials characterization and industrial laboratory workflows.
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Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, have developed a megalibrary platform that enables the rapid, intentional engineering of new materials with specific properties, such as piezoelectricity, by using high-throughput screening and AI-ready datasets to accelerate discovery from years to hours.
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A research team at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, Wash., has deployed AI agents with the potential to accelerate the recovery of critical minerals from real-world industrial waste in days instead of the months or years required for manual experimentation.
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Tescan, Czech Republic, unifies non-destructive Micro-CT, ultrafast laser processing, and high-precision FIB-SEM into a single, integrated workflow to accelerate root-cause determination in advanced semiconductor packaging while minimizing preparation-induced artifacts.
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JEOL Ltd., Japan, has launched global sales for LazEdge, a SEM system that integrates proprietary Hamamatsu Photonics laser technology directly into the specimen chamber for high-speed, high-quality sample processing.
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