IN FOCUS

MRS Communications Welcomes Proposals to Write a Prospectives Article Peter F. Green, Editor-in-Chief of MRS Communications, explains in this video why authors should submit a proposal to write a Prospectives article. Click on the video image below to learn more. Published jointly by the Materials Research Society and Cambridge University Press, MRS Communications publishes Prospectives articles that are a unique feature of the journal, offering succinct and forward-looking reviews of topics of interest to a broad materials research readership. To date, Prospectives articles have been published by invited authors only. The journal editorial board, however, would now like to make this opportunity available to the materials research community at large. Interested authors can complete a proposal form and submit to [email protected]. We look forward to receiving your submission. For more information about the journal click here. MRS OnDemand® Content from the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting is now LIVE! Of special interest is the Women in Materials Science and Engineering Breakfast: Strategies for a Professional STEM Career and Successful Personal Life presentation given at the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting. Linda S. Schadler, the Russell Sage Professor in Materials Science and Engineering and the associate dean of academic affairs in the School of Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, provided some amusing anecdotes and thought-provoking comments on how you can’t have it all, but you can have a lot. She shared the experiences of women she has known as they (and their partners) figured out how to have successful professional careers and personal lives. To access any of the MRS OnDemand presentations, login with your MRS username and password or create a free account. 2014 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit April 21-25, 2014 San Francisco, California Pre-registration is now open! Register by 5:00 pm (ET), April 4 and SAVE!

NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF MATERIALS


Keep up with materials research news through MRS!
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Materials in Focus

Bio-Inspired Micro-Architecture Yields Tougher, More Bendable Glass
McGill University, Montreal, Canada

by Joseph Bennington-Castro

Image caption: Taking design cues from seashells, researchers introduced micro-defects and jigsaw-like interfaces into the bulk of glass to improve its toughness by 200-fold. Credit: François Barthelat. Click image to enlarge.

Despite being stiff and strong, glass is notoriously brittle. By comparison, many natural materials, including tooth enamel and mollusk shells, have unusual properties unmatched by engineered materials—their high mineral content makes them stiff and strong, but they're also very tough because of microscopic features that hinder crack propagation. Now, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, have taken cues from nature to significantly increase the toughness of glass slides. By introducing laser-generated micro-cracks and jigsaw-like interfaces, they made their glass slides more deformable and 200 times tougher. More

Read the abstract in Nature Communications.

Bio Focus

Acoustics Power Nanorods Inside Living Cells
Penn State University

by Tim Palucka

Image caption: Optical microscope image of a HeLa cell containing several gold-ruthenium nanomotors. Arrows indicate the trajectories of the nanomotors, and the solid white line shows propulsion. Near the center of the image, a spindle of several nanomotors is spinning. Inset: Electron micrograph of a gold-ruthenium nanomotor. The scattering of sound waves from the two ends results in propulsion. Image credit: Mallouk Lab/Penn State. Click image to enlarge.

Much research has been done in recent years regarding the use of nanoparticles to deliver drugs to specific cells in an organism—tumor cells, for instance. The mechanism for getting the nanoparticles to their destination has generally been passive, relying on the natural flow of blood to propel them along. Some quite successful work has been done using chemical and magnetic forces to drive the particles to the desired place and to control them once there. Now, researchers have added acoustic propulsion to power gold nanorods inside cells, rotating them radially and axially, which could make them good probes for the mechanical properties of cellular organelles. More

Read the abstract in Angewandte Communications.

Twisted Fishing Line Makes Powerful and Cheap Artificial Muscles
University of Texas at Dallas

by Prachi Patel

Image caption: Photograph comparing muscles made by coiling (from left to right) 150 μm, 280 μm, 860 μm and 2.45 mm nylon 6 monofilament fibers. Image courtesy Science/AAAS. Click image to enlarge.

By twisting and coiling polymer fibers used for fishing lines and sewing thread, researchers have made artificial muscles that can lift a hundred times more weight than human muscle of the same size. The muscles can contract their length by 49%—human muscle contracts by 20%—and can generate as much horsepower per kilogram as a jet engine. What's more, they are much cheaper and simpler than other twisted fiber muscles made in the past. More

Read the abstract in Science.

Industry Focus

New Energy Technologies SolarWindow™ Recipient of 2013 Energy Innovation Award from Energy Business Review

New Energy Technologies, Inc., announced that SolarWindow™, the see-through technology capable of generating electricity on glass windows and flexible plastics, has been selected as the Energy Innovation Award winner for 2013 by Energy Business Review (EBR). The award recognizes the most promising projects with the potential to become trendsetters in the global energy sector. More

Image in Focus

TEMu —The Extraordinary Marine urchins

TEM image of cobalt-doped iron phosphide nano-urchins grown by solution-phase synthesis and restored to their natural habitat by computational methods.

Credit: Adriana Mendoza-Garcia, Brown University

(Click image to enlarge.)

(A Second Place Winner in the Science as Art competition at the 2013 MRS Fall Meeting)

Copyright for all Science as Art images belongs to the Materials Research Society. To request permission to re-use the images, please contact Anita Miller.

HAPPENINGS AT MRS

Interested in science writing?

Learn the techniques required to take any story—a news story, journalistic article, blog entry or profile of a scientist—to the next level.

A free, one-day writing workshop will be held on Monday, April 21, in parallel with the 2014 MRS Spring Meeting in San Francisco. You do not need to be registered for the Spring Meeting to attend the Science Writing Workshop. The workshop is limited to 15 participants. Applications are accepted until March 20, 2014.

Call for Papers—Two Journal of Materials Research Focus Issues

If you are working in the two fields listed below, please be sure to submit a paper so it can be considered for inclusion in the always-popular JMR Focus Issues.

The Materials Science of Additive Manufacturing—September 2014 Issue
Submission deadline: April 8, 2014
Guest editors: Todd A. Palmer, Pennsylvania State University; Jens Günster, BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Germany; and Daniel Gunther, voxeljet AG, Germany

Optical Ceramics Science—October 2014 Issue
Submission Deadline: April 15, 2014
Guest editors: Romain Gaume, University of Central Florida; Yiquan Wu, Alfred University; and Thomas Hartnett, Raytheon Company

Visit the JMR Focus Issues web page for more details.

Of Interest to the Materials Science Community

What makes a material magical? An ability to change shape before your eyes, to turn from a liquid to a solid or to be one of the lightest materials on earth and yet also one of the strongest? MAGICAL MATERIALS explores the properties of some of the world's most mysterious materials, giving you an opportunity to investigate and experiment at the cutting edge of material science. MAGICAL MATERIALS was exhibited at the SCIENCE GALLERY, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

MEETINGS UPDATE

Critical Meeting Deadlines

JUST PUBLISHED

MRS Communications

Research Letters:

Study of relaxation dynamics of photogenerated excitons in CuInS₂ quantum dots
Inderpreet Singh, S. Madan, A. Kaur, J. Kumar, P.K. Bhatnagar and P.C. Mathur

Oxygen vacancy enhanced room-temperature ferromagnetism in Sr₃SnO/c-YSZ/Si (001) heterostructures
Y.F. Lee, F. Wu, J. Narayan and J. Schwartz

Lithium oxide solution in chloride melts as a medium to prepare LiCoO₂ nanoparticles
Vladimir Khokhlov, Dmitriy Modenov, Vasiliy Dokutovich, Viktor Kochedykov, Irina Zakir’yanova, Emma Vovkotrub and Igor’ Beketov

Get your free Android App or iTunes App for MRS Communications for full mobile access to this journal.

MRS Bulletin

Elastic Strain Engineering
February 2014

Guest editors: Ju Li, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA; Zhiwei Shan, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China; and Evan Ma, Johns Hopkins University, USA

Technical Feature
Nanogaps for SERS applications
Lianming Tong, Hongxing Xu and Mikael Käll

News & Analysis
Molecular-sized fluorescent probes achieved with nanodiamonds
Jean L. Njoroge

Ferromagnetism revealed in suspensions of magnetic nanoplatelets in liquid crystal
Dirk Wouters

Science Policy
Critical minerals bill introduced in US Senate
Jennifer A. Nekuda Malik

Materials for Energy Blog
Be sure to check out, contribute to, and comment on the re-launched Materials for Energy blog!

Journal of Materials Research
Focus Issue: Graphene and Beyond (Access is FREE until MArch 31!)
February 2014, Volume 29, Issue 3

A selection of papers:

Characterizing mechanical behavior of atomically thin films: A review
Changhong Cao, Yu Sun and Tobin Filleter

Two-dimensional layered materials: Structure, properties, and prospects for device applications
Anupama B. Kaul

Characterizing phonon thermal conduction in polycrystalline graphene
Yanlei Wang, Zhigong Song and Zhiping Xu

CAREER CENTRAL

Classifieds

Partial listing from the upcoming March 2014 issue of MRS Bulletin

FOM Institute AMOLF 
Group Leaders/Assistant Professors

Johns Hopkins University 
Postdoctoral Fellowships, Hopkins Extreme Materials Institute

National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) 
Research Position, International Center for Young Scientists

Rice University 
Tenure-Track Assistant Professor, Materials Science and NanoEngineering

Sigma Aldrich 
Senior Scientist

South University of Science and Technology 
Faculty Positions, All Ranks

Tongji University 
Multiple Faculty Positions, Center for Phononics and Thermal Energy Science

University of Akron 
Faculty Position, Corrosion Engineering

University of Akron
Faculty Appointments, Biomimicry Research and Innovation Center

University of California, Merced
Faculty Position, School of Engineering

University of Central Florida 
Electron Microscopist, Advanced Materials Processing and Analysis Center

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 
Lecturer, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

University of Macau 
Director, Institute of Applied Physics and Materials Science

University of Virginia 
Faculty Position, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy 
SunShot Postdoctoral Research Awards

Yanshan University 
Faculty Position, State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology

DIVERSIONS

Quiz

What is the name of the clear soda-based glass invented by Angelo Barovier in the 1450s?

Submit "Did You Know" and "Quiz" items for consideration by emailing the MRS Science News Editor.

Quote of the Month

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” ― Richard P. Feynman

NEW PRODUCTS FOCUS

Turn-key Packages for Process Scale Reactions

The new ReactoMate Pilot jacketed reaction vessel, from Asynt, offers precise control of reaction variables, a powerful direct drive overhead stirrer and excellent reaction visibility even with the vacuum jacket option. Optimized for process scale reactions from 1 to 30 litres, the ReactoMate Pilot is available packaged with a Julabo A40 Presto Circulator to ensure superb temperature management and unrivalled performance, a ReactoMate-Pilot Super Support system to support your jacketed reactor and IKA overhead stirrer to ensure efficient reaction mixing.
[Contact: [email protected] or 44-1638-781709]

SXR EUV Spectral Test Station

McPherson recently introduced a soft x-ray (SXR) and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectral test station. The new McPherson 310STS has efficient grazing incidence optics with light sources that work between one and 120 nanometers. The 310STS tunable source system is flexible enough for a wide range of analytical research activities. Test spatial response of x-ray cameras, calibrate detectors, and spectrally test photo cathodes. Thin film reflectance, filter transmittance and absorbance are also possible. The new 310STS is useful for both integration to existing experimental test chambers or as a complete system with McPherson sample handling or chambers. It is a compact, robust and flexible system for SXR and EUV spectrophotometry.
[Contact: [email protected] or 978-256-4512]

[To suggest items for inclusion in Industry News and New Products Focus, please contact Mary Kaufold at 724-779-2755]

ABOUT MATERIALS360^®

Materials360 is edited by Tim Palucka, Science News Editor, Materials Research Society.

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