Highlights

Colloidal gels are formed by aggregation of particles into a percolating network in liquid media.  Although colloidal gels exhibit self-supporting, solid-like properties that underlie the design of a wide range of materials, how this class of soft solids forms is not yet fully understood.  In particular, the relative importance of thermodynamic and dynamic (non-equilibrium) phenomena underlying

Researchers in IRG3 of the Wisconsin MRSEC are studying bacteria to understand principles by which nature designs materials to achieve dynamic spatial targeting of molecules. Recently, the researchers have discovered that the spatial organization of phospholipids at the curved regions of bacterial cytoplasmic membranes has an important

The electronic properties of the polar interfaces between insulating oxides has been intensely investigated in recent years. An exciting new development is the observation of robust magnetism at the interface of two non-magnetic materials, LaAlO3 (LAO) and SrTiO3 (STO).

A new technique for imaging spin properties at the nanoscale, Scanned Spin‐Precession Microscopy, works by incorporating a scannable micromagnetic tip in conjunction with any of a variety of established spin detection tools—electrical or optical, and improves upon their limited or non‐existent imaging capabilities. The magnetic field gradient from the probe directly selects spins from certain regions of the sample for study.

On March 13, 2013, students from Philadelphia's Latin School visited the Princeton Center for Complex Materials. The 9th and 10th graders came to PCCM from the largely African American all boys charter school in Philadelphia. Their teacher, Christine Galib, a Princeton University alum, has been teaching her students about nanotechnology. She saw a talk by PCCM's Professor Michael McAlpine and wanted to inspire her students about nanomaterials. The students toured the Imaging and

We utilized microfluidic methods to investigate the role of geometric structures, e.g. thin spherical block copolymer shells, in the microphase separation in block copolymer thin films. The shells are comprised of the triblock copolymer styrene-isoprene-styrene (SIS). For air-in-oil-in-water emulsions, microfluidic devices with two consecutive flow-focusing junctions were used to generate air bubble-containing droplets of a solution of the SIS triblock

Biofilms are soft, largely organic, highly heterogeneous, self-generated, self-repairing thin films comprised of macromolecules, inorganic ions, and living matter. These films corrode petroleum pipelines and storage tanks, increase drag on shipping vessels, and account for the majority of hospital-treated infections. The mapping between microbial physiology and the material properties of biofilms is complex, of considerable economic importance, and largely uncharted. To date, physiology-biofilm

In 2012, Princeton University’s NSF-funded research center Princeton Center for Complex Materials (PCCM) and its partners the Princeton Public Library and  the New Jersey State Museum were awarded the NSF funded NISEnet Nano! Mini-Exhibit. Nano! is a new engaging exhibition for family audiences about nanoscale science, technology, and engineering. The Nano! Mini-Exhibit is open to the public at the Princeton Public Library for one year.  1000’s have already enjoyed the exhibit. The exhibit allows the public to

The kagome lattice is an outstanding example of a frustrated magnet, a system in which the magnetic moments cannot satisfactorily align to minimize the energy. Its ground-state configuration has been a long-standing puzzle. Recent debate has focused on the relative stability of a valence bond-crystal, and an isotropic spin-liquid (where quantum fluctuations cause all ordering to disappear). Using numerical techniques, we have shown [1] that there is an intermediate competing

Solid-state devices rely on the control of the flow of electrons and holes at the interface (“heterojunction”) formed between different semiconductors. Silicon is the workhorse of the semiconductor industry. However, until now, creating a heterojunction between Si and other materials with a larger energy gap has been an intractable problem for the most part, because of the lack of a lattice match between Si and crystalline wide-gap materials. In this seed, Sturm, Kahn,  Schwartz and Loo report two materials that do