Highlights

Widely used in small electronic devices and in the nascent market for HEVS (Hybrid Electric Vehicles), lithium ion batteries store more energy for theirweight, operate at a higher voltage, and hold a charge much longer thanother rechargeable batteries. As a new approach, Belcher and Ceder of the MIT MRSEC IRG-I have explored a biological way to create new charge storage materials for lithium ion batteries by using a virus as a scaffold totemplate the growth and assembly of nanoscale electrode

High-quality single crystals of Bi2Se3 grown via the Bridgeman technique.

Surface plasmons are light-energy propagating electromagnetic modes trapped at the interface between certain metals (notably gold and silver) and a dielectric. They are also of interest for optical processes enhanced by strong local electric fields.

    May 2009 marked the University of Maryland MRSEC’s 12th Annual Middle School Student Science Conference, co-hosted by the American Institute of Physics.

Micron-sized non-volatile magnetoresistance devices are being pursued using ferroelectric/magnetostrictive multilayers.

We have identified a composition in Sm doped BiFeO3 which exhibits a complex mixture of ferroelectric phase and an antiferroelectric phase. Left shows a high resolution TEM image of a region displaying an interface between a rhombohedral ferroelectric phase (FE matrix) and antiferroelectric (antipolar clusters).

Magnetism is typically associated with “transition metal” elements such as nickel or iron, from the middle of the periodic table.  These elements contain d electrons which are localized on the atoms, and have a “spin” or magnetic moment.  Carbon contains no d electrons and is not normally magnetic. 

Graphene (two-dimensional carbon) is an attractive material for spintronics due to weak spin-orbit coupling for robust spin transport properties. This could lead to spin-based computers that integrate logic and memory for much greater computing power.

Ordered double perovskites, such as Sr2FeMoO6, are among the very few materials that allow electrons of one spin direction to move through them as though they were passing through a normal metal, while blocking electrons of the opposite spin.  Materials that behave this way at room temperature are even more exotic.