Pb(Hf0.2Zr0.2Ti0.2Nb0.2X0.2)O3, a high-entropy perovskite, undergoes an entropy-driven phase transformation when X=Mn while X=Al always contains minor second phases in bulk ceramics.

Inspired by the human eye, a team led by Clarke at the Harvard MRSEC has reported in Science Advances an adaptive metalens that is a flat, electronically-controlled artificial eye. This new lens which combines breakthroughs in artificial muscle and lens technologies simultaneously controls focus, astigmatism, and image shift.

The search for an unusual form of superconductivity known as topological superconductivity has attracted a great deal of attention of the quantum materials community because of its fundamental novelty and potential applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing technology.

In a new seed project within the Northwestern University MRSEC, a novel approach for discovering and designing materials is being developed using directed evolution. While directed evolution approaches have been successfully applied in areas such as therapeutics or catalysis, this strategy has not been fully explored in materials science and engineering.

Princeton researchers have demonstrated that acid pre-treatment of NaCrS2 to form a new phase (named HxCrS2) results in significant improvements to the material’s performance as a sodium battery electrode.

Electrohydrodynamic ink jet printing has been used to print  CsPbBr3 nanocrystals into very small features, with spot sizes down to only a few hundred nanometers across. The nanocrystals survive the printing, and even spontaneously self-organize into superlattices.

Susan J. Muller, University of California Berkeley, and Eric S.G. Shaqfeh, Stanford Highlight from Stanford MRSEC 0213618

Electronic  nematicity  is  a  correlated  electronic  state  in  solids  that spontaneously breaks rotational symmetry. This work found that in Fe1+yTe1-xSex,  one  of  the  most  strongly  correlated  iron-based superconductors,   electronic   nematicity   is   closely   linked   to magnetism,   and   its   fluctuations   may   be   responsible   for superconducting pairing.

Researchers at UPenn investigate the fracture behavior of disordered polymer-infiltrated nanoparticle films (PINFs). Here, the extent of polymer confinement in PINFs was tuned over three orders of magnitude NPs of varying size and polymers with varying molecular weight. The results show that brittle, low molecular weight (MW) polymers can significantly toughen NP packings, and this toughening effect becomes less pronounced with increasing NP size. 

Granular hydrogels are jammed assemblies of hydrogel microparticles (i.e., “microgels”) widely explored in biomedical applications due to promising features such as shear-thinning to permit injectability and inherent porosity for cellular interactions. One area where this is particularly promising is in 3D printing.