Several years ago, a Physics World article posed the question, “Why would anyone still want to study a physical phenomenon that was discovered in the 1930s, explained in the 1960s and has been the subject of numerous reviews since the 1970s?”
The quest to understand the fundamental building blocks of nature and their interactions is one of the longest-running and most ambitious of human endeavors.
The compelling need for energy efficiency in the transportation industry provides a strong motivation for the increased use of lightweight engineering materials such as titanium and magnesium alloys that will lead to weight reduction.
Phonons — the elemental particles that transmit both heat and sound — have magnetic properties, according to a landmark study conducted by a research group from The Ohio State University and supported by the Ohio Supercomputer Center.
Just one decade ago, researchers first isolated graphene, a carbon film only one atom thick – essentially a semi-metallic material so thin that it presents only two measurable dimensions, length and width.
A research group at Ohio University has been studying the physics of chemical elements in the oxygen family that lack a crystalline structure, elements known as amorphous chalcogenide materials.
In 1978, the Food and Drug Administration approved cisplatin, a platinum-based compound, for clinical use. Cisplatin today is widely recognized as an effective cancer-treating drug, but it also is known to cause many severe side effects, such as kidney damage, nervous system impairment, nausea and vomiting.
Scientists at the University of Akron, in collaboration with partners at UCLA, are investigating the unique properties of metal alloy nanostructures – materials measuring 1-1000 nanometers in length – that have potential applications in the manufacture of fuel cells, batteries, automotive catalysts, sensors and nanoeletronic devices.
Most American highways are constructed as a Portland cement concrete (PCC) slabs that are poured and finished on a layered roadbed. Such pavement structures are subjected to millions of applications of traffic wheel-loads, as well as numerous cycles of temperature and moisture variations, and eventually succumb to cracking.
Developing new materials and engineering their novel properties have been the driving forces behind many revolutionary modern technologies. The emerging capabilities in predictive modeling and simulation have created an opportunity to implement the “materials-by-design” paradigm.
