Highlights

Spin waves called magnons are an emerging way to carry information with far less energy than today’s electronics and to link qubits in future quantum technologies. How long that information survives is limited by the spin waves’ coupling to atomic vibrations, especially at room temperature.

Wisconsin MRSEC IRG 1 developed a new generative AI model for metallic glasses, called GlassVAE. The model is based on ideas similar to ChatGPT, but adapted to describe the complex atomic structures of glasses.

Two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) have recently been shown to demonstrate non-volatile resistive switching (NVRS), offering significant advantages such as high-density integration and low energy consumption due to their atomic-scale thinness. In the work shown here, density functional theory has been used to analyze the electronic properties of defects in atomically thin materials and their influence on electrical behavior, most notably resistive switching which has potential for application in nonvolatile memory devices and neuromorphic computing.

The UT Austin MRSEC team has demonstrated a dodecagonal WSe₂ van der Waals quasicrystal as a tunable platform beyond conventional periodic moiré crystals.

The UT Austin MRSEC team has demonstrated experimental evidence for six-state clock physics in monolayer NiPS₃, an atomically thin van der Waals antiferromagnet.

The UT Austin MRSEC team has demonstrated that assembly of actin filaments inside protein condensates creates distinct material architectures. When filaments are allowed to grow freely, the resulting long, flexible actin filaments form a ring-like coil within condensates, which deforms condensates into toroidal architectures. In contrast, when a filament capping or severing protein is introduced to limit filament length, the resulting collection of shorter filaments assembles into rigid bundles that deform condensates into rods of high aspect ratio.

The UT Austin MRSEC team has achieved temporally programmable gelation of aldehyde-functionalized tin-doped indium oxide nanocrystals linked with bifunctional hydrazide linkers. The addition of tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate salt accelerates assembly, enabling systematic control over gel kinetics. In situ measurements using small-angle X-ray scattering, X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, Vis-NIR spectroscopy, and kinetic Monte Carlo simulations reveal a time-salt superposition of structural, dynamical, and optical trajectories throughout gelation.

The FUSE program has provided research opportunities in the field of materials science to 36 first year students at UT Austin. FUSE students perform ~7-8 hours/week of laboratory work in CDCM labs, receive intentional mentoring from faculty, learn basic research techniques, hone their oral and written communication skills, and join a community of supportive researchers.

CDCM provides industry mentoring connections for Center students, enabling them to broaden their networks and learn essential skills necessary for a successful transition into the workforce. Overall, 192 graduate students and post-docs have received mentoring through this program, 50 of those from 2025-26 cohort alone.

The UT Austin MRSEC team has established an operando workflow combining optical microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, diffraction, and automated electrochemistry to study far-from-equilibrium Zn electrodeposition.