IN FOCUS

	CALL FOR PAPERS—2016 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit                                                                                                          The abstract submission deadline for the 2016 MRS Fall Meeting & Exhibit is tomorrow, June 16! Don’t delay; submit your best work today. Abstract Submission Deadline—June 16, 2016
	FREE WEBINAR— Frontiers of Synchrotron Diffraction Research in Materials Science Wednesday, June 22  |  12:00 – 1:30 pm (ET) The presentations in this webinar will complement the articles in the June 2016 issue of MRS Bulletin, which provides an overview of the state-of-the-art of synchrotron research as it relates to materials research.  Attendance for this and all MRS OnDemand Webinars is FREE, but advance registration is required.
	CALL FOR NOMINATIONS—TWO NEW MRS AWARDS MRS announces two new additions to its Awards portfolio—the MRS Impact Award, and the MRS Woody White Service Award. Nominations for both inaugural awards are now being accepted. More information, including descriptions and nomination guidelines, can be found at www.mrs.org/awards. Nomination Deadline—August 1, 2016

MATERIALS NEWS

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

Tuning the hardness of crystals
	Pure calcium carbonate—the main component of chalk—crumbles easily. But mix in small amounts of other organic molecules like amino acids, and the resulting material is much harder. In nature, this process is called biomineralization—it is how animals like mollusks create their hard protective shells. Now, scientists have figured out how to manipulate this process in the laboratory to control the hardness of a crystalline material.
Silk protein protects blood for months without refrigeration
	Blood contains a range of biomarkers that are important for health screening, monitoring, and diagnostics, but these components degrade quickly without proper preservation and storage techniques. Though various techniques exist today to protect and stabilize blood, the available technologies have drawbacks, such as requiring cold storage to work in challenging environments.
Atomic probe tomography shows complex oxide films take differentiated nucleation paths
	Creating materials with novel and useful functionalities seems like a never-ending challenge. While new materials-by-design approaches have helped point scientists in promising directions, many materials require significantly different synthesis conditions than calculations predict. One such material is La2MnNiO6 (LMNO), whose ideal structure predicted a high ferromagnetic moment but actually forms with a poor ferromagnetic moment under typical deposition conditions. A recent study now shows that LMNO unexpectedly does not nucleate as a single homogeneous phase but instead follows a complex alternative synthesis path.
Holmium-MgO pairing leads to stable single-atom magnets
	In work that could open the door to atomic-scale spintronic devices, researchers have created a single-atom magnet that is surprisingly stable. By placing rare earth atoms on an ultrathin magnesium oxide (MgO) film, the researchers were able to overcome factors that traditionally limit the performance of magnets on this scale, achieving stability at 30 K for half an hour or more.

People in Focus

Gerd Binnig, Christoph Gerber, and Calvin Quate receive Kavli Prize for work on atomic force microscope The Kavli Foundation has recognized atomic force microscopy (AFM) and its overwhelming scientific success as a tool for manipulating and imaging individual atoms with the 2016 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience.
Gerd Binnig, Former Member of IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, Switzerland	Christoph Gerber, University of Basel, Switzerland	Calvin Quate, Stanford University, USA

Industry Focus

Toyota, Nissan seek battery breakthroughs
Rivals Toyota Motor Corp. and Nissan Motor Co. are developing battery technologies they hope will give them an edge with longer range.

European leaders call for ‘immediate’ open access to all scientific papers by 2020
In what European science chief Carlos Moedas calls a "life-changing" move, EU member states agreed on an ambitious new open-access (OA) target. All scientific papers should be freely available by 2020, the Competitiveness Council—a gathering of ministers of science, innovation, trade, and industry—concluded after a 2-day meeting in Brussels. But some observers are warning that the goal will be difficult to achieve.

For more science policy news, follow @MaterialsSciPol

CORPORATE PARTNER NEWS

Thin film, miniaturized components for next-gen smart devices

Goodfellow and the German technology company Acquandas GmbH have formed a partnership to offer micro-patterned, 2D and 2.5D integrated multi-function miniaturized components and coatings with superior performance properties. Smart medical devices and intelligent industrial instrumentation can now be cost-effectively developed and batch-manufactured with significantly higher mechanical properties, increased integrated device functionality and a longer service life. Quantities can range from prototype to high-volume production. Materials currently available include nitinol (NiTi) and other superelastic or shape memory alloys, bioresorbable alloys, magnetic materials, as well as electrical alloys and insulators.

The Corporate Partner Program supports the Materials Research Society Foundation®.


MEETINGS UPDATE

Critical Meeting Deadlines

PUBLICATIONS UPDATE

Critical Publications Deadlines

JUST PUBLISHED

	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, MRS Communications
	Frontiers of synchrotron research in materials science Klaus-Dieter Liss and Kai Chen, MRS Bulletin
	Multi-Beam SEM Technology for High Throughput Imaging Kyle Crosby, Anna Lena Eberle and Dirk Zeidler, MRS Advances
	Multiscale 3D characterization with dark-field x-ray microscopy Hugh Simons, Anders Clemen Jakobsen, Sonja Rosenlund Ahl, Carsten Detlefs, and Henning Friis Poulsen, MRS Bulletin
	Phase Transitions in Ge-Sb-Te Alloys Induced by Ion Irradiations Stefania Privitera, Antonio M. Mio, Julia Benke, Christoph Persch, Emanuele Smecca, Alessandra Alberti and Emanuele Rimini, MRS Advances
	Quantitative microstructural imaging by scanning Laue x-ray micro- and nanodiffraction Xian Chen, Catherine Dejoie, Tengfei Jiang, Ching-Shun Ku, and Nobumichi Tamura, MRS Bulletin
	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, MRS Communications

	Electrophoretic deposition of nanostructured hematite photoanodes for solar hydrogen generation Xiangyan Chen, Meng Wang, Jie Chen and Shaohua Shen, Journal of Materials Research
	Evolution and feasibility of decentralized concentrating solar thermal power systems for modern energy access in rural areas Amy Mueller, Matthew Orosz, Arun Kumar Narasimhan, Rajeev Kamal, Harold F. Hemond and Yogi Goswami, MRS Energy & Sustainability: A Review Journal
	High-energy x-ray scattering studies of battery materials Matthew P.B. Glazer, John S. Okasinski, Jonathan D. Almer, and Yang Ren, MRS Bulletin
	The photocathodic behavior of hierarchical ZnO/hematite hetero nanoarchitectures Debajeet K. Bora,  Journal of Materials Research
	Rigorous substrate cleaning process for reproducible thin film hematite (α-Fe2O3) photoanodes Kirtiman Deo Malviya, Hen Dotan, Ki Ro Yoon, Il-Doo Kim and Avner Rothschild, Journal of Materials Research

Nano Focus

	Local-structure-affected behavior during self-driven grain boundary migration X. M. Luo, B. Zhang, X. F. Zhu, Y. T. Zhou, T. Y. Xiao and G. P. Zhang, MRS Communications
	Mechanically Compliant Electrodes and Dielectric Elastomers from PEG-PDMS Copolymers Aliff Hisyam A Razak, Frederikke Bahrt Madsen and Anne Ladegaard Skov, MRS Advances

SCIENCE AS ART

Oil Droplets Alekander Labuda, Asylum Research This photograph represents experimental proof of the theoretical work by John Bush (MIT) in the field of hydrodynamic quantum analogs. These silicone oil droplets are bouncing indefinitely above a vibrating pool of silicone oil at 15 Hz. Read More. A First Place Winner in the Science as Art competition at the 2016 MRS Spring 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

NEW PRODUCTS FOCUS

Rapid Production of Ultra-Pure DNA
	Chromatrap®, a business unit of Porvair Sciences, has announced a new 96-well high throughput purification plate for production of ultra-pure DNA. Using proprietary filtration media that allow much higher loadings of active material than has been previously possible, typical assay times using the Chromatrap® DNA Purification Plate are less than 5 minutes. The Chromatrap® DNA Purification Kit is designed for the purification and concentration of samples from PCR mixtures, ChIP and restriction enzyme digestions. Using this unique kit, researchers can purify up to 10 µg DNA in small elution volumes (5-10 µl), providing a cleaner and more concentrated sample required for applications such as library preparation for DNA sequencing. Contact: [email protected] or 44-1978-666222
Self-Regenerating Purifier for Chromatography Gases
	Asynt has introduced GasTrap gas purifiers for analytical laboratories using Gas Chromatography (GC), High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) or Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS) instrumentation. Gas purity is essential in any GC, HPLC or GC/MS application requiring high sensitivity. Available in optimized models for Helium, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and pure air, GasTrap gas purifiers dramatically reduce the levels of contaminants, enhance the purity of lower grade helium, and help ensure instrument stability, reproducibility as well as lowering running costs. Contact: [email protected] or 44-1638-781709

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

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