Volume 15, Issue 19

  In this issue:



ULVAC Technologies Inc.
HELIOT 900 Leak Detector



SPI Supplies
Sample Preparation Equipment and Consumables



Ted Pella, Inc.
Microscopy Supplies and
Specimen Preparation Tools



MaterialsViews
Stay ahead in
Materials Science!



National
Electrostatics Corp.

Ion Beams, RBS, PIXE,
AMS, MeV Implant



JEOL USA, Inc.
CFEG S/TEM--
Unrivalled Raw Data



American Elements
Now Invent.™



CRAIC Technologies
Raman, UV-vis-NIR, Fluorescence, Polarization Microspectroscopy



Minus K Technology
Best Low-Frequency
Vibration Isolation



HORIBA Scientific
Most Advanced
Ellipsometry Solutions



Rigaku
XRD with Variable
Knife Edge Feature



Angstrom Engineering
Thin Film Deposition Equipment and Material



Pfeiffer Vacuum
Leak Free Rotary
Vane Pumps



Bruker
Tribology, Optical Microscopy & AFM



MTI Corporation
Thin Film Coating



AdValue Technology, LLC
Crucibles, Tubes, Plates, Custom Parts



SPS-Europe
Spin Coating from
150 to 450mm




IN FOCUS

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2016 MRS Spring Meeting—
PREREGISTER BY FRIDAY AND SAVE!


The preregistration deadline for the 2016 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit in Phoenix, Arizona is just a few days away. Don't delay; preregister now at www.mrs.org/spring-2016-registration.

Preregistration Deadline—5:00 pm (ET), March 11, 2016

Download the FREE MRS Meeting App

All the information you need to have a successful and organized Spring Meeting can be found using the free MRS Meeting App. Full session descriptions, abstracts and event details are available right at your finger tip. Visit mrsspring.zerista.com to access the website, or download the mobile app to your smartphone or tablet by searching “MRS Spring Meeting” on the app store.

Log in with your MRS username and password, then start planning your week!

awards
MRS Awards—NOMINATE A COLLEAGUE TODAY

Nominations for five prestigious MRS Awards are now being accepted: Von Hippel Award; David Turnbull Lectureship; MRS Medal; Materials Theory Award; and The Kavli Foundation Early Career Lectureship in Materials Science. Nominate a colleague today!

Nomination Deadline—April 1, 2016

MATERIALS NEWS

Keep up with materials research news through MRS!
Materials360 Online  |  RSS feed  |  Twitter feed

Materials in Focus

Inorganic–organic hybrid distributed Bragg reflectors heighten electrical conductance
Research in optoelectronics is moving toward combining traditional inorganic materials with cheaper, more versatile organic semiconductors. A recent example comes from a research group at Soochow University, demonstrating hybrid inorganic-organic distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs), which show high performance and relatively easy fabrication compared with traditional all-inorganic DBRs.

Bio Focus: Silk-collagen scaffolds engineered to create cortical brain tissue model
What if we could reconstruct the neuronal network of a human brain? An interdisciplinary bioengineering approach, silk protein processing, has now been used to develop a novel compartmentalized cortical brain tissue model with biomaterials resembling neuron-rich gray matter and axon-rich white matter.


Industry Focus


The first truly breathable fabric contains living bacteria
There’s nothing new about clothing derived from biology—think leather, fur, wool, even silk. But a garment that’s actually alive? Not until now. MIT Media Lab researchers have incorporated living bacteria into a synthetic fabric, creating a material that responds to body moisture and hinting at a future of clothing that reacts to the person wearing it.

Piezoelectric graphene ink enables thin-film pressure sensors of any size
UK-based Haydale Graphene Industries Plc and the Welsh Centre for Printing and Coating at Swansea University have fabricated a sensor using a thin plastic sheet with conductive silver tracks oriented vertically on one side, and silver tracks oriented horizontally on the other side. In between these tracks is a graphene-based conductive ink that is responsive to pressure, making it possible to measure the pressure at any point across the film’s surface.

3D bioprinting tools provide new avenues for medical research
3D printing is one of the hottest forms of additive manufacturing techniques due to its ability to quickly and efficiently create custom designs in a wide range of materials, including 3D-printed prosthetics. There are numerous research applications for these 3D bioprinting tools and processes, including the development of advanced bioinks, biosensors, medical constructs, pills, implants, advanced prosthetics, food and animal product testing, tissue and organ generation and dental repairs/replacements.


Policy Focus

US NSF launches long-awaited diversity initiative
The National Science Foundation (NSF) wants to make the United States’ scientific community more inclusive, and has launched the program INCLUDES. The underrepresentation of women and minorities in the scientific workforce is a problem that has persisted for decades despite many well-meaning federal initiatives. NSF Director France Cordova has spoken repeatedly about her intention of moving the needle on the issue since taking office in March 2014. And this initiative, totaling roughly $75 million, could well be the signature program of her 6-year term.


For more science policy news, follow @MaterialsSciPol

OF INTEREST TO THE MATERIALS COMMUNITY


Profiles in Materials Science: Fiona C. Meldrum
Images of crystals roll across the top of the Meldrum Group website. Their work on crystal growth is an advantage in doing public outreach, says Fiona C. Meldrum of the University of Leeds, UK, since everyone can appreciate images of beautiful crystals. For the past three years, Fiona’s group has exhibited these images in a pub in Leeds called the North Bar.

An electric car battery that will get you from Paris to Brussels and back
Proposition: Electric cars will remain mostly niche products until they have a range of 800 kilometers, or roughly 500 miles, with an affordable battery. And the metal-air battery carries more energy per kilogram than today’s lithium-ion batteries.



MEETINGS UPDATE

Featured Events at the 2016 MRS Spring Meeting

Several special events will be featured at the upcoming MRS Meeting in Phoenix. Below are just a few highlights. For a list of all Meeting activities, visit www.mrs.org/spring-2016-activities-events. To receive daily news from the Meeting, subscribe to the Meeting Scene.

NEW Special Announcement: Postdoc Hardship Registration Grants available

MRS Communications Lecture
Monday, March 28  |  5:30 – 6:30 pm

In the inaugural MRS Communications Lecture, David C. Martin, University of Delaware, will present “Molecular design, synthesis and characterization of conjugated polymers for interfacing electronic biomedical devices with living tissue.”

2016 MRS Spring Meeting Career Fair
Tuesday, March 29 – Thursday, March 31
The Career Fair is a rich resource for exciting career opportunities. You have the skills and knowledge that employers are searching for—they just need to find you. Join us at the Career Fair and meet them face-to face. Before the Meeting, upload your confidential resume and create your personal profile. All Career Fair activities are FREE to Job Seekers, but you must register to participate.

Women in Materials Science & Engineering Breakfast
Wednesday, March 30  |  7:00 – 8:30 am
Dianne Chong of Boeing Engineering Operations & Technology (retired) will present “Innovation.”
Advance sign-up and ticket required.

Critical Meeting Deadlines

2016 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit
March 28-April 1, 2016
Phoenix, Arizona

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Register by 5:00 pm (ET) March 11, 2016 for discounted rates.

74th Device Research Conference
(DRC 2016)
June 19-22, 2016
Newark, Delaware

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION
Opens Late March

58th Electronic Materials Conference
(58th EMC)
June 22-24, 2016
Newark, Delaware

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION
Opens Late March

American Conference on Neutron Scattering
(ACNS 2016)
July 10-14, 2016
Long Beach, California

exhibit opportunities available
CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstract Submission Deadline
—March 14, 2016


18th International Conference on Metal Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy
(ICMOVPE-XVIII)
July 10-15, 2016
San Diego, California

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION
Opens Late March
5th International Conference on Metal-Organic Frameworks & Open Framework Compounds
(MOF 2016)

September 11-15, 2016
Long Beach, California

exhibit opportunities available
CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstract Submission Opens
—Late March

International Workshop on Nitride Semiconductors
(IWN 2016)

October 2-7, 2016
Orlando, Florida

exhibit opportunities available
CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstract Submission Deadline
—April 29, 2016

PUBLICATIONS UPDATE

Critical Publications Deadlines

MRS Advances
2016 MRS Spring Meeting

Submission deadline:
3/17/2016
November 2016 – Journal of Materials Research 31(21)
Aberration Corrected Transmission Electron Microscopy
Submission deadline:
4/1/2016
January 2017 – Journal of Materials Research 32(1)
Second Annual Early Career Scholars Issue

Submission deadline:
6/1/2016


JUST PUBLISHED

MRS Advances

Plant Growth Response to Atmospheric Air Plasma Treatments of Seeds of 5 Plant Species
Masaharu Shiratani, Thapanut Sarinont, Takaaki Amano, Nobuya Hayashi and Kazunori Koga

Near-Junction Microfluidic Cooling for Wide Bandgap Devices
Avram Bar-Cohen, Joseph J. Maurer and Abirami Sivananthan


Performance and Reliability of SiC Power MOSFETs

Daniel J. Lichtenwalner, Brett Hull, Vipindas Pala, Edward Van Brunt, Sei-Hyung Ryu, Joe J. Sumakeris, Michael J. O’Loughlin, Albert A. Burk, Scott T. Allen and John W. Palmour

MRS Communications

From the forthcoming Special Issue on Plasmonics, Photonics, and Metamaterials

Google PlayiTunes

Angled physical vapor deposition techniques for non-conformal thin films and three-dimensional structures
Zhuoxian Wang, Paul R. West, Xiangeng Meng, Nathaniel Kinsey, Vladimir M. Shalaev and Alexandra Boltasseva

Low-loss silicon wire waveguides for optical integrated circuits
Tsuyoshi Horikawa, Daisuke Shimura and Tohru Mogami

Engineering the Reststrahlen band with hybrid plasmon/phonon excitations
W. Streyer, K. Feng, Y. Zhong, A.J. Hoffman and D. Wasserman

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

 

MRS Bulletin
Follow @MRSBulletin

Patterning via self-organization and self-folding
February 2016, Volume 41, Issue 2

 

Google PlayiTunes

Book Reviews

Applications of Graphene and Graphene-Oxide Based Nanomaterials
Sekhar Chandra Ray
Reviewed by K.S.V. Santhanam

Scanning Probe Microscopy: Atomic Force Microscopy and Scanning Tunneling Microscopy

Bert Voigtländer
Reviewed by Sidney Cohen


Herbert Fröhlich: A Physicist Ahead of His Time

G.J. Hyland
Reviewed by Ram Devanathan

Free MRS Bulletin webinar: Patterning via self-organization and self-folding

MRS Bulletin Special Issue Session—Materials & Engineering: Propelling Innovation
will be held on March 30 at the 2016 MRS Spring Meeting in Phoenix, Ariz.

Advertise in MRS Bulletin.

Journal of Materials Research

March 2016, Volume 31, Issue 5

A selection of papers:

Following iron speciation in the early stages of magnetite magnetosome biomineralization
Emre Firlar, Teresa Perez-Gonzalez, Agata Olszewska, Damien Faivre and Tanya Prozorov

Structural Commonalities and Deviations in the Hierarchical Organization of Crossed-Lamellar Shells: a Case Study on the Shell of the Bivalve Glycymeris glycymeris
Corinna F. Böhm, Benedikt Demmert, Joe Harris,Tobias Fey, Frédéric Marin and Stephan E. Wolf

Effect of growth rate on microstructures and microhardness in directionally solidified Ti–47Al–1.0W–0.5Si alloy
Tong Liu, Liangshun Luo, Yanqing Su, Liang Wang, Xinzhong Li, Ruirun Chen, Jingjie Guo and Hengzhi Fu
Advertise in JMR.  
 

MRS Online Proceedings Library Archive

Visit the MRS Online Proceedings Library Archive and read about the research presented at recent MRS Meetings. Access is free to MRS members.

 

From Volume 1784, 2015 MRS Spring Meeting,
Symposium R,  Photoactive Nanoparticles and Nanostructures

Intragap States Induced Visible Light Absorption of TiO2 Nanoparticles: 
En Route
 to Solar Fuel Production

Houman Yaghoubi, Thomas M. Casey, Umar T Twahir, Alexander Angerhofer, Gail E. Fanucci, Zhi Li, Rudy Schlaf and Arash Takshi

From Volume  1785, 2015 MRS Spring Meeting,
Symposium S – Semiconductor Nanowires and Devices for Advanced Applications
 

Nonlinearity Found in Thermoelectric Devices Made of Heterogeneous Semiconductor Nanowire Networks
Kate J. Norris, Matthew P. Garrett, Junce Zhang, Elane Coleman, Gary S. Tompa and Nobuhiko P. Kobayashi


From Volume 1800, 2015 MRS Spring Meeting,
Symposium NN – Adaptive Architecture and Programmable Matter―Next Generation Building Skins and Systems from Nano to Macro - 2015

Time – Space – Matter Emergent Materials in Architecture
Martina Decker

SCIENCE AS ART


Oriental Drawing: Maple Tree
Hyosung An, Texas A&M University

Colorized SEM image of ultra-long vanadium pentoxide nano-belt bundles synthesized by a hydrogen peroxide method.

A Second Place Winner in the Science as Art competition at the 2015 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.

EDITOR'S CHOICE VIDEO

Engineering a spinal cord repair kit
Science Nation

Polina Anikeeva and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are designing multifunctional polymer strands to help repair nerve damage or deliver treatment for neurological disorders.



NEW PRODUCTS FOCUS

Digital Microscope Cameras

ZEISS recently introduced two new digital microscope cameras—the ZEISS Axiocam 702 mono and ZEISS Axiocam 512 color—to complement their current portfolio of high-speed USB 3.0 microscope cameras. With ZEISS Axiocam 702 mono, ZEISS for the first time introduces a microscope camera with a scientific CMOS sensor. Users benefit from low read noise, excellent low light sensitivity and high speed for live cell imaging and acquisition of fast processes. ZEISS Axiocam 512 color allows acquisition of large sample areas in one high resolution, true color image. The ZEISS Axiocam family covers a broad range of applications, from digital microscopy in industry and routine to high-end scientific imaging.

Contact: [email protected] or 49-3641-64-3949
 
New Brand of High-Resolution AFMs

ARDIC recently released QScan, QScan Plus and QScan Pro tapping mode atomic force microscopes (AFMs) that allow users with no prior experience to start producing professional sub-nanometer-resolution images within minutes. The process is simplified through a proprietary optical detection system with the smallest (0.56-micrometer) spot in the industry, perpetually aligned with the detector; and by using predictive algorithms that set up the measurement conditions. QScan AFMs offer uncompromising image quality, intuitive operation and outstanding cost-effectiveness, further backed by an industry-leading 3-year factory warranty and lifetime warranty on the optical detection system.

Contact: [email protected]

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 Judy Meiksin, News Editor, and produced by Joe Yzquierdo, Electronic Communications Assistant, Materials Research Society.

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© Materials Research Society, 2016. All rights reserved.