Granular hydrogels are jammed assemblies of hydrogel microparticles (i.e., “microgels”) widely explored in biomedical applications due to promising features such as shear-thinning to permit injectability and inherent porosity for cellular interactions. One area where this is particularly promising is in 3D printing.
UPenn researchers explored the potential energy landscapes of three different glassy and glass-forming model systems in simulation; discovering that the lowest energy glassy states of the system have an unexpected arrangement in high-dimensional configuration space. Specifically, rather than being randomly scattered and separated by steep and tall energy barriers (akin to the lowest points in an Alpine landscape), the states were arranged into quasi-one-dimensional clusters, crumpled into a fractal shape, with only small barriers between them (akin to the low-lying points along the floor of the Grand Canyon).
Researchers at UPenn investigate the fracture behavior of disordered polymer-infiltrated nanoparticle films (PINFs). Here, the extent of polymer confinement in PINFs was tuned over three orders of magnitude NPs of varying size and polymers with varying molecular weight. The results show that brittle, low molecular weight (MW) polymers can significantly toughen NP packings, and this toughening effect becomes less pronounced with increasing NP size.
Electronic nematicity is a correlated electronic state in solids that spontaneously breaks rotational symmetry. This work found that in Fe1+yTe1-xSex, one of the most strongly correlated iron-based superconductors, electronic nematicity is closely linked to magnetism, and its fluctuations may be responsible for superconducting pairing.
Electrohydrodynamic ink jet printing has been used to print CsPbBr3 nanocrystals into very small features, with spot sizes down to only a few hundred nanometers across. The nanocrystals survive the printing, and even spontaneously self-organize into superlattices.
Princeton researchers have demonstrated the physical principles of capillarity, including examples of how capillary forces structure multiphase condensates and remodel biological substrates. As with other mechanisms of intracellular force generation (e.g. molecular motors), capillary forces can influence biological processes. Identifying the biomolecular determinants of condensate capillarity represents an exciting frontier, bridging soft matter physics and cell biology.
Princeton researchers have demonstrated that acid pre-treatment of NaCrS2 to form a new phase (named HxCrS2) results in significant improvements to the material’s performance as a sodium battery electrode.
The search for an unusual form of superconductivity known as topological superconductivity has attracted a great deal of attention of the quantum materials community because of its fundamental novelty and potential applications in fault-tolerant quantum computing technology.
Pb(Hf0.2Zr0.2Ti0.2Nb0.2X0.2)O3, a high-entropy perovskite, undergoes an entropy-driven phase transformation when X=Mn while X=Al always contains minor second phases in bulk ceramics.
Triangular monomers with positive curvature in one direction and negative curvature in another assemble into trumpet shaped objects predicted to have precise self-limited lengths due to frustration-induced stress.
