The LRSM topological insulator (TI) seed is investigating how the connectivity of electronic bands in momentum space can be used to topologically classify insulators and semimetals. The theory of topological band structures has been generalized beyond TIs to include topological semimetals, including Weyl semimetals, Dirac semimetals and other symmetry protected topological states.
The LRSM has organized a free, four week summer program for local high school students interested in materials science and engineering since 1993. Typically 24-28 students, usually juniors but occasionally well qualified sophomores, are accepted. Students are drawn from schools in the Delaware Valley within easy commuting distance of the LRSM.
This year, we collaborated with Penn’s Center for Technology Transfer (CTT) on a discussion panel "How to Start a Materials-based Company." CTT is in charge of transferring inventions and innovative knowledge to outside organizations for the benefit of society. The panel, geared mainly towards graduate students, focused on starting a materials science based company.
Semiconductor nanocrystals are sensitive to air and solvents, which hinders wet-chemical processing under ambient conditions.
This problem has limited the scaling of nanocrystal device dimensions and large-scale device integration achievable by conventional processing.
The mechanical failure of amorphous systems is not well understood, but recent work by Liu and co-workers suggests that low-frequency vibrational modes are concentrated in localized regions, or “soft spots,” that are prone to rearrange.
Disordered nanoparticle assemblies constitute an important class of materials that have numerous applications in energy conversion and storage, electronics, photonics, and sensing. Unfortunately, however, such assemblies tend to fracture and abrade under small loads, significantly limiting their widespread use.
Dendrimers are highly branched molecules. Amphiphilic glycodendrimers have been synthesized for the first time. These macro-molecules have tunable carbohydrate head groups and hydrophobic tails. The precise architecture of the dendrimers facilitates assembly of precise structures, including vesicles (glycodendrimersomes).
