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Highlights

Highlights

Fig. 1: a) Director Mason leads a lesson on how temperature affects materials, b) Perry leads students as they take apart a magnetic drawing board, c) Schleife lets students explore atomic structure with a VR lesson; d) Walsh shows the surfaces of a pencil using an optical profiler, then leads students in writing haikus about it, e) a 7th grader’s haiku inspired by examining the pencil (shown in background).
Fig. 1: a) Director Mason leads a lesson on how temperature affects materials, b) Perry leads students as they take apart a magnetic drawing board, c) Schleife lets students explore atomic structure with a VR lesson; d) Walsh shows the surfaces of a pencil using an optical profiler, then leads students in writing haikus about it, e) a 7th grader’s haiku inspired by examining the pencil (shown in background).
Apr 29, 2021
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Virtual Musical Magnetism Engages Middle School Students in Materials Science

The Illinois MRSEC implemented its middle school outreach program “Musical Magnetism” for the third year starting in Feb. 2021, in a six-week, virtual format. The program engages middle school students in materials science demos as they practice creative expression with a science theme. The program reached 50 7th and 8th graders at Franklin STEAM Academy, a school with majority URM students.
a) Schematic of 2D heterostructure bent over a hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) step. b-c) Scanning transmission electron microscopy images of graphene-MoS2 heterostructures over h-BN steps. The bending stiffness is measured from the shape of the bend in the image. Scale bars are 2 nm. d) Experimental bending stiffness of four-layer graphene-MoS2 heterostructures with different stacking orders. By simply changing the order of the graphene and MoS2 layers, the bending stiffness is tuned up to 400%.
a) Schematic of 2D heterostructure bent over a hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) step. b-c) Scanning transmission electron microscopy images of graphene-MoS2 heterostructures over h-BN steps. The bending stiffness is measured from the shape of the bend in the image. Scale bars are 2 nm. d) Experimental bending stiffness of four-layer graphene-MoS2 heterostructures with different stacking orders. By simply changing the order of the graphene and MoS2 layers, the bending stiffness is tuned up to 400%.
Apr 29, 2021
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Designing Highly Deformable 2D Materials and Heterostructures

A. M. van der Zande, P. Y. Huang, and E. Ertekin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Illinois MRSEC team has demonstrated a new ability to create ultra-soft 2D heterostructures by design. With combined electron microscopy studies and atomistic simulations, they show that systematically incorporating low-friction interfacial layers into 2D stacks tunes the bending stiffness up to several hundred percent.
Assembly of Linked Nanocrystal Colloids by Reversible Covalent Bonds
Assembly of Linked Nanocrystal Colloids by Reversible Covalent Bonds
Apr 28, 2021
University of Texas at Austin

Assembly of Linked Nanocrystal Colloids by Reversible Covalent Bonds

D. Milliron, E. Anslyn, T. Truskett: Univ. of Texas at Austin
This highlight demonstrates the combination of colloidal nanocrystals with uniquely developed ligands for the use of gelation assembly. Through this combined experimental, computational and theoretical work provided a platform for controlling and designing the properties of reversible colloidal assemblies.
Collective Excitations in Twisted Bilayers
Collective Excitations in Twisted Bilayers
Apr 28, 2021
Big Idea: Quantum Leap

Collective Excitations in Twisted Bilayers

X. Li, A. MacDonald, K. Lai, C. K. Shih: Univ. of Texas at Austin
Moire superlattices consist of two monolayers of atomically thin materials, in this case the transition metal dichalcogenide MoS2, stacked on top of each other with a slight rotational misalignment (twist) that creates a moire interference pattern between the atomic lattices of the two monolayers.
Top: Designed DNA structures of varying charge density and flexibility. Bottom left: Coacervate droplets formed from 1 DNA structure. Bottom middle/right: Binary droplets formed from a model system with 2 DNA structures.
Top: Designed DNA structures of varying charge density and flexibility. Bottom left: Coacervate droplets formed from 1 DNA structure. Bottom middle/right: Binary droplets formed from a model system with 2 DNA structures.
Apr 6, 2021
University of California, Santa Barbara

Seed: Selecting for Phase-Separating Nucleic Acid Coacervates

Top: Designed DNA structures of varying charge density and flexibility. Bottom left: Coacervate droplets formed from 1 DNA structure. Bottom middle/right: Binary droplets formed from a model system with 2 DNA structures.
A single parent diblock copolymer can be purified by automated chromatography to give libraries of well-defined, low dispersity block copolymers on multi-gram scale.
A single parent diblock copolymer can be purified by automated chromatography to give libraries of well-defined, low dispersity block copolymers on multi-gram scale.
Apr 6, 2021
University of California, Santa Barbara

IRG-3: Accelerating Block Copolymer Research

A single parent diblock copolymer can be purified by automated chromatography to give libraries of well-defined, low dispersity block copolymers on multi-gram scale.
IRG-1: Magnetoplastic Coupling in Heusler Intermetallics
IRG-1: Magnetoplastic Coupling in Heusler Intermetallics
Apr 6, 2021
University of California, Santa Barbara

IRG-1: Magnetoplastic Coupling in Heusler Intermetallics

Experiments (top) showing near zero-net magnetization of MnAu2Al following plastic deformation and simulations (bottom) of low energy displacive pathways enabled by local spin orderings.
The UC Santa Barbara ran a fully remote REU program in Summer 2020, with 18 students working on primarily computational projects.
The UC Santa Barbara ran a fully remote REU program in Summer 2020, with 18 students working on primarily computational projects.
Apr 6, 2021
University of California, Santa Barbara

UC Santa Barbara MRSEC Continues REU Program Through COVID-19 Lockdown

The UC Santa Barbara ran a fully remote REU program in Summer 2020, with 18 students working on primarily computational projects. 18 students participated from 8 different colleges and universities. In addition to research, students participated in weekly intern group meetings, and weekly Zoom career building workshops, including Tips on Talks, Figures for Presentations, Poster Making, Finding Positions in Industry, Graduate School Panel, and others. All students presented their results in a virtual Summer Intern Colloquium.
Tiny Robots with Giant Potential (TED Talk)
Tiny Robots with Giant Potential (TED Talk)
Mar 4, 2021
Big Idea: Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier, Materials Under Extreme Conditions

Tiny Robots with Giant Potential (TED Talk)

Take a trip down the microworld as roboticists Paul McEuen and Marc Miskin explain how they design and mass-produce microrobots the size of a single cell, powered by atomically thin legs -- and show how these machines could one day be "piloted" to battle crop diseases or study your brain at the level of individual neurons.
NYU-MRSEC & BioBus Collaboration
NYU-MRSEC & BioBus Collaboration
Jun 13, 2020
Big Idea: Growing Convergence Research

NYU-MRSEC & BioBus Collaboration

Scientific Frontiers Program, New York University & BioBus
NYU-MRSEC investigators have worked alongside BioBus scientists to develop new K-12 materials science-related curricula since 2009. This collaboration brought exciting and educational engineering projects to over 1,000 NYC students in 2019-2020.

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