Highlights

Siderophores are compounds in microorganisms that bind and store iron. Parallels between the chemistry of compounds secreted by mussels to aid adhesion to rocks, and the chemistry of some siderophores inspired UCSB researchers Butler, Israelachvili, and Waite and their coworkers to study their adhesive properties.

The use of a prototype “TriBeam” microscope, a scanning electron microscope equipped with a femtosecond laser for rapid serial sectioning, allows 3D views of materials to be obtained. Incorporating both chemical data and crystallographic data has allowed the nature, structure, and crystal orientation of the components to be determined within a 155 μm × 178 μm × 210 μm volume of a biphasic Heusler thermoelectric material. 

Metallic glass nanostructures provide a new platform for electrocatalytic applications. Several surface modification strategies that remove or add metal species (images, right) improve the catalytic activity of metallic glass nanostructures.   These strategies were demonstrated for three key electrocatalytic reactions important for renewable energy.     

Strong interactions at the interface between a crystalline film and substrate can impart new structure to thin films. Here, a germanium surface (purple atoms) squeezes a BaTiO3 thin film above, revealing a hidden phase not seen in the bulk. The hidden phase of BaTiO3 shows oxygen octahedra cages (shaded in aqua) alternating in size. By combining theory, synchrotron x-ray diffraction, and electron microscopy, a new materials design approach has uncovered hidden traits of a material that can be expressed through articulated forces at an interface.

Artificially designed planar devices known as metasurfaces can control the output of an incident beam to generate prechosen patterns.

Present day silicon chips for communication and computing are densely packed with transistors and other passive elements.

An inter-MRSEC collaboration between the University of Chicago and the Pennsylvania State University led to the discovery of a new technique that enables bidirectional control of the chemical potential in a topological insulator (TI).

There is an abiding interest in using nanocrystals as laser gain media due to their tunable emission wavelengths, low cost, and solution processability. However, it has been proven difficult to achieve low lasing thresholds suitable for practical applicatons.  MRSEC members Engel and Talapin showed that colloidal semiconductor nanoplatelets (NPLs) with electronic structure of quantum wells can produce optical gain and lase in the red, yellow, green, and blue regions of the visible spectrum with low thresholds and high gains, both a significant improvement over colloidal quantum dots [1].

We introduced the concept of plate mechanical metamaterials [1] and its initial realization in the form of freestanding corrugated plates made out of ultrathin films. We used atomic layer deposition (ALD) and microfabrication techniques to make robust plates out of a single continuous ALD layer with lateral dimensions of up to 2 cm and a thickness as low as 25 nm, creating the thinnest freestanding plates that can be picked up by hand [1].

The NSF has awarded additional funds to support helium conservation in the Property Measurement Shared Experimental Facility (SEF). The SEF hosts over a dozen low temperature measurement capabilities requiring liquid helium.