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Discovery: Graphene-based plasmonic structures composed of graphene-insulator-graphene can provide gain at THz frequencies due to interplay between plasmons and resonant-tunneling.

Teaching the Teachers Electromagnetism at the Physical Sciences Inquiry Academy These fifth-grade teachers are building electromagnetic ping pong ball launchers to demonstrate electromagnetism to their students. Utah MRSEC leads lessons and activities for teachers, as well as provides educational kits which supplement curriculum andcoordinate with Utah Core Standards. Participants:

Northwestern MRSEC provides the physical and intellectual infrastructure to nucleate collaborative opportunities in materials research both on and off the Northwestern campus, and continues to leverage its diverse portfolio of research into new educational and commercial opportunities. Recent examples include:

Electron microscopy reveals the fundamental steps of bending An international team of Cornell researchers and collaborators was recently entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for fabricating the world’s thinnest pane of glass — only two atoms thick!

Spin resonance in diamond using a MEMS resonator

A new technique for imaging spin properties at the nanoscale, Scanned Spin‐Precession Microscopy, works by incorporating a scannable micromagnetic tip in conjunction with any of a variety of established spin detection tools—electrical or optical, and improves upon their limited or non‐existent imaging capabilities. The magnetic field gradient from the probe directly selects spins from certain regions of the sample for study.

The mechanical failure of amorphous systems is not well understood, but recent work by Liu and co-workers suggests that low-frequency vibrational modes are concentrated in localized regions, or “soft spots,” that are prone to rearrange. Yodh and Liu experimentally studied the nature of soft spots in crystalline and amorphous packings of colloidal spheres.  In crystals  [1], they found soft spots to be concentrated on topological defects such as grain boundaries and dislocations that are well known to serve as flow defects in crystals.

Semiconductor nanocrystals are sensitive to air and solvents, which hinders wet-chemical processing under ambient conditions. This problem has limited the scaling of nanocrystal device dimensions and large-scale device integration achievable by  conventional processing. We demonstrated a simple, in-situ recovery route using indium metal as a chemical agent which upon thermal activation is triggered to diffuse and repair the damage introduced by chemical and environmental exposure that degrade the electronic properties of semiconductor NC thin films and their devices.