Volume 15, Issue 19

  In this issue:



ULVAC Technologies Inc.
Arc Plasma Deposition Systems



SPI Supplies
Sample Preparation Equipment and Consumables



Goodfellow
Metals and Materials…
from the Ordinary to the Extraordinary



Ted Pella, Inc.
Microscopy Supplies and
Specimen Preparation Tools



Harrick Plasma, Inc.
Plasma Cleaning and
Surface Activation



HORIBA Scientific
Tip Enhanced Raman Scattering (TERS) /
Nano-Raman



American Elements
Now Invent.™



Rigaku
Identification of an Unknown Sludge by Benchtop XRD



Shimadzu Scientific Instruments
Powerful Solution for Materials Characterization



Lake Shore
Cryotronics Inc.

Precision Measurement in Variable Environments



Angstrom Engineering
Thin Film Deposition Equipment and Materials



Bruker
D8 DISCOVER - Advanced XRD for Materials Research



MTI Corporation
Thin Film Coating



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



Janis Research Company, LLC
ARPES to X-Ray;
10mK to 800K




IN FOCUS


Two Free Webinars in May

Using a New Coincident X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy and Raman Spectroscopy System for More Comprehensive Materials Analysis
Thursday, May 5  |  12:00 – 1:30 pm (ET)
Sponsored by Thermo Scientific


Twinning in Metallic Materials: Strengthening and Plasticity

Wednesday, May 11  |  12:00 – 1:30 pm (ET)


awards
CALL FOR PAPERS—2016 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit

2016 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit
November 27-December 2, 2016  |  Boston, Massachusetts

Abstract Submission Opens—May 16, 2016
Abstract Submission Deadline—June 16, 2016

awards
New Focus Issue of Journal of Materials Research (JMR) now available online!

Two-Dimensional Heterostructure Materials

April 2016, Volume 31, Issue 07

Non-members can enjoy free access to the entire issue until May 31, 2016.

Remember—online access to JMR, and all MRS publications, is FREE to MRS Members all year long. Just log in with your MRS username and password.

MATERIALS NEWS

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


Two new methods reported for growing MoS2 on a large scale
Two new methods can produce the two-dimensional semiconductor molybdenum disulfide over an area a few centimeters wide. Large-scale syntheses of uniform MoS2 films could make it easier to build electronic and energy storage devices using the material.

3D printed supercapacitor electrodes use graphene aerogel ink
A new printable composite ink, based on graphene oxide and graphene nanoplatelets, has been developed for the fabrication of 3D-printed graphene aerogel electrodes with designed macro-architectures. A supercapacitor produced using these electrodes demonstrated outstanding energy and power density. The flexibility of the technique will allow for printing of electrodes in a wide range of geometries and architectures, opening new horizons for portable and wearable electronics and microelectronics.

Heteroepitaxial nickel-alloy thin films grown on diamond
A team of researchers in Moscow have taken a significant step toward diamond-based electronics—which are useful for high-temperature, high-power microwave electronics—by “flipping” the task of growing diamond on metal to heteroepitaxial layers of metals on a diamond.

Thermoelectric power of texture revealed in SnSe
Since 2014 the thermoelectric community has turned its attention to tin selenide (SnSe) for thermoelectricity. Doping and texturing have been exploited to improve the performance of polycrystalline SnSe, but the early results suffer from some uncertainty and a ZT > 1 has not been reported so far. Now a research team reports further success with hot-pressed SnSe ingots.

Bio Focus: Soft microrobots propelled by structured light
Miniature robots or microbots now have a new way to move—using only light. A group of researchers, led by Peer Fischer from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany, explains how a soft microbot can be made to swim in a viscous medium just using patterned light.

Single chip integrates transistors and photonic components
Each new year brings with it new cell phones and computers that out perform their predecessors. The regular and continuing improvement in computing power is one of the great successes of modern engineering; however, as consumers become more dependent on their devices, they increasingly demand better battery life. Now scientists may have created one possible solution to this problem by incorporating next-generation photonic materials into traditional circuits, promising computers that are capable of running more calculations on less energy.

Research Highlights: Perovskite-based solar cells
Many scientists believe that metal-halide perovskite solar cells will first see the light of day commercially in tandem form, stacked above silicon cells. This promises to boost commercial silicon module efficiency from about 20% to over 30%. But the necessary energy bandgap to realize such high-efficiency tandem cells has only been found in unstable perovskites.

Scanning probe microscopy reveals nanoscale pathways for ion transport in a future energy storage material
Scanning probe microscopy provides a nanoscale look at how ion storage impacts the mechanical properties of a future energy storage material called MXene.


People in Focus

Walter Kohn dies at 93
fgh Walter Kohn, whose parents saved his life by sending him out of Nazi-dominated Europe before the outbreak of World War II and who went on to become an American citizen and a winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry for work vital in developing new materials for electronics and medicine, died April 19 at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 93.

Robert Birgeneau is National Science Board’s 2016 Vannevar Bush awardee
fgh The National Science Board (NSB) announced that Robert J. Birgeneau is the recipient of the 2016 Vannevar Bush Award. Birgeneau is chancellor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley and holds the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Distinguished Chair in the Departments of Physics, Materials Science and Engineering and Public Policy.

Cato T. Laurencin to receive 2016 Connecticut Medal of Technology
fgh

Cato T. Laurencin of the University of Connecticut, a world-renowned physician-scientist in orthopaedic surgery, engineering, and materials science, has been named the 2016 recipient of the Connecticut Medal of Technology. Laurencin gave the plenary address at the 2016 MRS Spring Meeting in Phoenix.

Industry Focus

Airplanes are getting lighter thanks to 3D-printed parts

Metal 3D printing, which has been around for nearly two decades, is finally coming into its own as a genuine mass manufacturing technology: sales of machines that print metal objects have risen rapidly as manufacturers, especially in the aerospace industry, gear up for commercial production of additively made parts they’ve been developing for years.

Wacker opens polysilicon plant
Wacker Chemie is starting up a $2.5 billion plant in Charleston, Tenn., that will make polysilicon for the solar panel industry. The German firm is opening the facility in a market that has bottomed out but is still struggling to turn a profit.

Solar energy becomes mainstream as capacity grows 10-fold within seven years
“By the end of 2020, the amount of installed solar capacity will be 300 percent higher than today,” Dan Whitten, vice president of communications at the Solar Energy Industries Association, said. The greatest problem that the solar industry has faced has been the cost of producing energy from solar panels.

The search for a better battery
Despite the appearance of rapid technological advances, the specter of stagnation looms over the world’s innovators. Low-hanging fruit is nowhere to be seen in fields as crucial as digital electronics, biomedical devices, or space technology. Nothing illustrates the looming problem of stagnation more dramatically than the quest for a superbattery.


Policy Focus

NATO’s science program funds materials research
When materials scientists seek research funding, NATO does not immediately come to mind. Yet NATO has an annual budget of €12.5 million for civil science through its Science for Peace and Security Program. Through this program, it has funded several materials-focused projects that fall under the auspices of its strategic goals and key priorities.

Same bottom line hides sharp disagreement in US Congress over energy research
Legislators in both houses of Congress agree that science at the Department of Energy (DOE) should get a slight boost—0.9%—next year. But how they get to that number is quite another story.

For more science policy news, follow @MaterialsSciPol

OF INTEREST TO THE MATERIALS COMMUNITY

New documentary inspires collaborative action for peace in Congo
The documentary Merci Congo explores the stories of individual activists, including Carolyn Duran, Intel’s Director for Global Supply Management who visited 91 smelters in 21 countries to ensure the company's processors are made from conflict-free minerals throughout the supply chain.

Finalists’ superheroes from the Generation Nano: Small Science, Superhero competition
Contestants from high school provided written entries explaining the superhero and nanotechnology-driven gear, with particular emphasis on the research behind the nanotechnology, and a one page comic strip introducing the superhero. The challenge is sponsored by the US National Science Foundation with the National Nanotechnology Initiative.


MEETINGS UPDATE

News

iMatSci winners at the 2016 MRS Spring Meeting
The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of iMatSci—Innovation in Materials Science—who presented their technologies were announced during the 2016 MRS Spring Meeting.

Call for Proposals: Special student-organized event at the 2016 MRS Fall Meeting
MRS University Chapters are invited to submit proposals for a student-organized event at the 2016 MRS Fall Meeting, held in Boston, Massachusetts, from November 27 - December 2, 2016. The proposal should focus on a single, high-impact interdisciplinary topic affecting STEM students.

Critical Meeting Deadlines

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

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Preregistration Deadline
—June 3, 2016
58th Electronic Materials Conference
(58th EMC)
June 22-24, 2016
Newark, Delaware

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Preregistration Deadline
—June 3, 2016
American Conference on Neutron Scattering
(ACNS 2016)
July 10-14, 2016
Long Beach, California

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Preregistration Deadline
—June 24, 2016
18th International Conference on Metal Organic Vapor Phase Epitaxy
(ICMOVPE-XVIII)
July 10-15, 2016
San Diego, California

exhibit opportunities available
PREREGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Preregistration Deadline
—June 24, 2016

XXV International Materials Research Congress
(IMRC 2016)

August 14-19, 2016
Cancun, Mexico

exhibit opportunities available

PREREGISTRATION NOW OPEN
Preregistration Deadline
—July 15, 2016
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 Deadline—May 2, 2016
International Workshop on Nitride Semiconductors
(IWN 2016)

October 2-7, 2016
Orlando, Florida

exhibit opportunities available
CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstract Submission Deadline
—May 16, 2016

2016 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit
November 27-December 2, 2016
Boston, Massachusetts

exhibit opportunities available
CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstract Submission Opens—May 16, 2016

Abstract Submission Deadline—June 16, 2016

PUBLICATIONS UPDATE

Critical Publications Deadlines

January 2017 – Journal of Materials Research 32(1)
Second Annual Early Career Scholars Issue

Submission deadline:
6/1/2016
May 2017 – Journal of Materials Research 32(9)
Focus Issue on Microstructural Characterization for Emerging Photovoltaic Materials
Submission deadline:
10/1/2016


JUST PUBLISHED

MRS Advances

Secondary Electron Transmission Studies of the Electron Diffusion and Thermalization Processes in Thin CVD Diamond Films
Joan E. Yater, Kevin L. Jensen, Tatyana I. Feygelson and Bradford B. Pate


Microscopic Electrical Conductivity of Nanodiamonds after Thermal and Plasma Treatments

Jan Čermák, Halyna Kozak, Štěpán Stehlík, Vladimír Švrček, Vincent Pichot, Denis Spitzer, Alexander Kromka and Bohuslav Rezek


Mechanical Energy Dissipation in a Multifunctional Battery System

Waterloo Tsutsui, Trung Nguyen, Hangjie Liao, Niranjan Parab, Jaspreet Kukreja, Thomas Siegmund and Wayne Chen

MRS Communications
FirstView

Google PlayiTunes

Thermal conductivity of synthetic boron-doped single-crystal HPHT diamond from 20 to 400 K
D. Prikhodko, S. Tarelkin, V. Bormashov, A. Golovanov, M. Kuznetsov, D. Teteruk, A. Volkov and S. Buga

Fabricating high refractive index titanium dioxide film using electron beam evaporation for all-dielectric metasurfaces

Ning An, Kaiyang Wang, Haohan Wei, Qinghai Song and Shumin Xiao

Effect of the ligand in the crystal structure of zinc oxide: an x-ray powder diffraction, x-ray absorption near-edge structure, and an extended x-ray absorption fine structure study
María de los A. Cepeda-Pérez, Cristina M. Reyes-Marte, Valerie Ann Carrasquillo, William A. Muñiz, Edgar J. Trujillo, Rahul Singhal, Harry Rivera and Mitk'El B. Santiago-Berríos

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

 

MRS Bulletin
Follow @MRSBulletin

Twinning in metallic materials
April 2016, Volume 41, Issue 4

 

Google PlayiTunes

The formation and growth of twins result in substantial evolution of microstructures and properties in a variety of metallic materials. The articles in this issue of MRS Bulletin overview the synthesis and mechanical behavior of nanotwinned metallic materials as well as plasticity dominated by mechanical twinning. The cover shows a transmission electron microscope micrograph of sputter-deposited epitaxial nanotwinned Ag in a cross-sectional view examined from the [01] zone axis. The image reveals high-density nanoscale growth twins with coherent twin boundaries normal to the growth direction. The average twin spacing is ~9 nm, and the average columnar domain size is ~120 nm.

In situ nanomechanical testing of twinned metals in a transmission electron microscope
Nan Li, Jiangwei Wang, Scott Mao, and Haiyan Wang

Deformation twinning in hexagonal materials
Xiaozhou Liao, Jian Wang, Jianfeng Nie, Yanyao Jiang, and Peidong Wu

Ab initio-guided design of twinning-induced plasticity steels
Dierk Raabe, Franz Roters, Jörg Neugebauer, Ivan Gutierrez-Urrutia, Tilmann Hickel, Wolfgang Bleck, Jochen M. Schneider, James E. Wittig, and Joachim Mayer

Technical Feature
The materials innovation ecosystem: A key enabler for the Materials Genome Initiative
David L. McDowell and Surya R. Kalidindi

MRS Bulletin will present a free webinar on "Twinning in Metallic Materials: Strengthening and Plasticity" on
Wednesday, May 11.

Advertise in MRS Bulletin.

Journal of Materials Research
April 2016, Volume 31, Issue 8

A selection of papers:
New opportunities for materials informatics: Resources and data mining techniques for uncovering hidden relationships
Anubhav Jain, Geoffroy Hautier, Shyue Ping Ong and Kristin Persson

Revealing the mechanical properties of potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals by nanoindentation
Y. Zhang, L.C. Zhang, M. Liu, F.H. Zhang, K. Mylvaganam and W.D. Liu

Deformation mechanics and microstructure evolution during indirect extrusion in (sub) mm-scale samples
Marzyeh Moradi, Saurabh Basu and M. Ravi Shankar

Advertise in JMR.  

SCIENCE AS ART


Colloidoscope
Ali Jawaid, Air Force Research Laboratory

Polymer-grafted silica colloids dispersed in a solvent with a surfactant and drop cast onto a water interface forming colorful, micron-sized structures.

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

Discover the NATO Science for Peace and Security Program
NATO

Through research grants, this program brings together scientists and experts from NATO and partner countries to address terrorism, cyber attacks, energy security, and other shared security concerns through cooperation along the lines of civil science, technology, and innovation.


NEW PRODUCTS FOCUS

Gooseneck Mounted LED Work Light

Larson Electronics, a leading manufacturer and supplier of industrial grade lighting equipment, has announced the release of a six watt high output LED light emitter affixed to an adjustable gooseneck magnetic base equipped with an inline power switch. The LED6W-GNM-SW gooseneck mounted LED work light offers high light output from a compact form factor and is designed to provide operators with the most flexible lighting solution available. The light assembly consists of six 1 watt LEDs paired with high clarity optics to produce a light output comparable to a 50 watt halogen light without the high heat, fragile construction, and high energy costs.

Contact: [email protected] or 903-498-3363
 
Versatile, High Precision Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscope

Mad City Labs recently announced the release of MCL-NSOM, a versatile near field scanning optical microscope (NSOM). The MCL-NSOM leverages our expertise with high-resolution SPM instrumentation and our core business of closed loop nanopositioning systems to design an NSOM that meets the performance criteria and versatility demanded by leading researchers.  The MCL-NSOM is an aperture NSOM built on Mad City Labs RM21™ inverted optical microscope, which allows users to convert to aperture-less NSOM, AFM and fluorescence optical microscopy. The MCL-NSOM includes fiber launch with excitation source, alignment camera, and detection avalanche photodiode (APD) but can also easily accommodate user ancillary excitation and detection optics further enhancing the versatility of this microscope.

Contact: [email protected] or 608-298-0855

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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