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Program Highlights for year 2007

Closing the Loop on Recycling: Can We Stop the oil-to-Landfill Treadmill?

Poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), a widely used engineering thermoplastic for carpet, clothing (fibers), tire cords, soda bottles and other containers, film, automotive, electronics, displays etc., will contribute several billion pounds of waste to landfills this year alone! According to the American Plastics Council, PET packaging was originally used for soft d

A new way to keep bacteria at bay

Penicillin, long used in medications, is now being studied as a coating, a novel weapon against bacteria that could protect medical implants and the surgical tools used to insert them.

Photo-Control of Interfacial Molecular Organization

Active interface architectures, exhibiting structural sensitivity to the presence of chemical species or light, are of interest for sensor and functional nanostructure applications. LCMRC researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to use liquid crystals to read out the state of a photoactive monolayer with great sensitivity to the incident wavelength.

Bistable Orientaton of Liquid Crystals on Nanoimprinted Topography

Modern liquid crystal displays (LCDs) operate by achieving a desired orientation of the LC molecules within the display. LCMRC researchers have demonstrated that topographic surface patterns made by nanoimprinting can produce exotic surface alignment of LCs, including bistable orientations (NE or NW) generated by an array of nanoscale boxes on the surface, as shown in the figure.

Liquid Crystals of nanoDNA

LCMRC researchers have discovered that solutions in water of pieces of DNA only a few nanometers long (nanoDNA) can form liquid crystal phases if the DNA is complementary, that is if it can form double-helixed pairs. These duplex pairs then stack up end-to-end to form rod-shaped aggregates that make the liquid crystal phases.

Research Experience for Teachers program is a springboard to ongoing relationships with local schools

After spending two summers participating in the Research Experience for Teachers Program at MIT's MRSEC, Ms. Julie O'Loughlin, a science teacher at Breed Middle School in Lynn, MA, brings her eighth-grade classes to CMSE to share the exciting research being done at the Center.

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