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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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
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, 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
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.
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.”
The detector’s first full accelerator test took place last July at SLAC, where researchers exposed their system to bursts of electrons lasting approximately one picosecond.
The team collected thousands of beam pulses under varying operating conditions and found that the detector consistently produced clean, sharply defined signals about one-eight of a nanosecond long, across a wide dynamic range.
“It performed extremely well, better than we expected,” said Schumm. “And not only that, but if we compare the performance to our pure calculation expectations, they agree with stunning accuracy.”
These first tests are just the beginning, with the second version of the detection system currently in testing and development for fall 2026. These tests will use a new version of the integrated circuit chip that has been specifically designed to read out the tiny diamond sensor, and is expected to provide an even faster signal response than the version tested last summer.
In the near future, the team also hopes to make the detector easier for non-specialist laboratories and operate as a “plug-and-play” diagnostic system. And beyond next-generation accelerators, this new system could potentially be applicable in high-energy physics, advanced laser-control systems, and fusion-energy development.
“The more and more that we look at things, the more and more we need to understand things at the atomic scale,” said Schumm. “We need to understand how things evolve—how things change over very, very fast time scales.”
This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Office of High Energy Physics, and UC National Laboratory Fees Research Program. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a DOE user facility operated by Los Alamos and Sandia national labs.
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.
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.
