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Inks of inorganic nanocrystals hold great promise for printed electronics but the widely used organic surfactants (ligands) needed to stabilize these inks degrade the electrical quality of the printed films.

Electrons in epitaxial graphene nanoribbons travel unimpeded at high speed for large distances, so that they are ideally suited for graphene electronics. a)         b) 

While conventional materials are assembled from inanimate building blocks, we are exploring the behavior of soft materials in which the constituent components consume energy and spontaneously coordinate their microscopic behavior and form novel materials such as active gels, crawling emulsion droplets, and living liquid crystals.

General Overview:  The Wisconsin MRSEC is investigating innovative methods to incorporate a greatly expanded diversity of atom types into semiconductors, thus yielding materials with a new range of electronic properties.  Semiconductors are the foundation of modern electronic and photonic devices, and are widely used in technologies such as solar cells, LEDs, and microprocessors.  Incorporating new atom types into semiconductors will expand the range of semiconductor

General Overview: Researchers at the Wisconsin MRSEC are working to develop sensors that can detect toxic substances near a single cell by exploiting the unique properties of liquid crystals (LC).  LCs are materials that combine physical properties of both liquids and solids, and they have been widely used for displays (LCDs) in electronic devices because the LCs reorganize in

Creating aligned arrays of high purity (>99.9%) semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs) over a large area has been a significant challenge in materials synthesis. Towards this goal, IRG2 have recently developed a novel yet simple method to deposit aligned s-SWCNTs on substrates via dose-controlled, floating evaporative self-assembly.  The diffusion

The wide range of instrumentation within the University of Wisconsin MRSEC Shared Instrumentation Facilities (UW-MRSEC SIF) can now be accessed by academic and industry users around the nation via the Materials Research Facilities Network (MFRN.org).   A Significant new addition over the past year is a Cameca LEAP 3000 Si ATOM Probe.

Fracture energy of plaque/glass interface Gc ≈ 100 J/m2 104 × larger than Eadh of mfp5 (the most adhesive protein)!  

Nanoscale three-dimensional (3D) structures are building blocks for the fabrication of miniature switching devices and can be used as functional units in nanorobotics. The functionality of the 3D structures is affected by their size and shape and may significantly differ depending on the properties of the bulk material. Nebraska MRSEC researchers

In work reported in Science (August 20, 2013) a Harvard MRSEC team led by Suo and Whitesides developed a transparent “ionic skin,” a sensor skin using ionic conductors. It senses signals with high stability and wide dynamic range, from a gentle touch of a finger to strains over 500%. The new ionic skin has attributes required for biocompatibility in medical devices and