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An article in the journal MRS Advances documented the outcomes of a summer research program for high school students based at the University of Puerto Rico, in partnership with the Penn MRSEC. Over the past two decades this program has engaged nearly 400 students in hands-on materials science research since 2005, with 84% pursuing STEM undergraduate studies.

Biological cells control spatial and temporal generation of active stresses to achieve diverse sought-after functionalities ranging from motility to cell division. Motivated by these observations IRG2 goal is to control of spatiotemporal patterns of active stresses and to endow soft materials with lifelike functionalities.

Disordered packings like sand piles and metallic glasses have arrangements of their constituent particles that appear very similar to those of a liquid.  It is a very hard and long-standing problem to be able “look” at the particle arrangement and tell if the the system is rigid, and where flow will initiate if the system is deformed.

MIT MRSEC researchers have demonstrated for the first time a selective cold drawing process in multi-material fibers in which one material undergoes cold-drawing while the others do not.

The use of a prototype “TriBeam” microscope, a scanning electron microscope equipped with a femtosecond laser for rapid serial sectioning, allows 3D views of materials to be obtained. Incorporating both chemical data and crystallographic data has allowed the nature, structure, and crystal orientation of the components to be determined within a 155 μm × 178 μm × 210 μm volume of a biphasic Heusler thermoelectric material. 

The combined results of controlled synthesis, ab-initio molecular-dynamics liquid-quench simulations, thorough structure and property characterization, and accurate density-functional calculations helped identify four major components that govern the electrical, optical, thermal, and mechanical properties of prototype In-based AOSs: (i) deposition temperature; (ii) oxygen stoichiometry; (iii) cation composition; and (iv) lattice strain, Figure.

Since the discovery of Graphene, there has been a significant interest in the search of new 2D materials which would show similar interesting properties such as electrical and thermal conductivity, superconductivity, and topological gap.

Weyl semimetals are newly discovered topological electronic materials in which surface electrons (Fermi arcs) are topologically connected with those of the bulk. Princeton researchers have found experimental evidence that electrons can transverse the bulk through the special momentum states, called Weyl points, moving between opposing surfaces.

MIT MRSEC researchers have demonstrated that the combined action of temperature and mechanical stress can tune the relative stability of electronic defects in semiconducting oxides.