Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation funding renewed
Materials Research Institute
An integrated research facilities turns product to prototype
Californians do not purchase electric vehicles because they are cool, they buy EVs because they live in a warm climate. Conventional lithium-ion batteries cannot be rapidly charged at temperatures below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, but now a team of Penn State engineers has created a battery that can self-heat, allowing rapid charging regardless of the outside chill.
By Walt Mills
For the first time, researchers have created a nanocomposite of ceramics with a two-dimensional material that opens the door to new designs of nanocomposites with a variety of applications, such as solid-state batteries thermoelectrics, varistors, catalysts, chemical sensors and much more.
In the latest issue of Focus on Materials, the boundaries between materials science, engineering, and the life sciences are blurring. We offer a glimpse into the fascinating world of “convergence,” where the future of healthcare lies.
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Photonics has provided the basic platform to test many fundamental theories of contemporary physics and to build novel technologies utilizing them. In this talk, I will discuss examples of how concepts such as entanglement, entangled networks and Parity-Time-symmetry can be realized in simple optical setups, highlight some of the unanswered questions, and how collaboration among different disciplines (e.g., optics, materials science, physics and engineering, etc) can provide new insights towards scalable and feasible quantum photonic networks as well as high-performance optical devices and systems.
“Attempting to Harvest the Hidden Functions of Biological Materials”
The iSuperSEED team of the Center for Nanoscale Science (Penn State MRSEC) pursues compelling new research opportunities in applying Rules of Life principles to adapt the highly-sophisticated synthesis and assembly machinery of living systems to the production of new symmetry-enabled functional materials that cannot be synthesized or fabricated through conventional engineering methods. The research team will leverage plant biology research of the DOE-funded Center for Lignocellulose Structure and Formation (CLSF), which seeks a deeper understanding of the plant cell wall, in part by adapting methods of materials research in service of biology to conversely induce biological systems to create new materials. As an initial step, the team will utilize genotype and extracellular environment to control the structure, composition, and crystalline order of cellulose across length scales in search of new modes of symmetry-enabled materials response such as piezoelectricity, ferroelectricity, and electro-optic effects.
Penn State’s investment in its interdisciplinary research institutes, including the Materials Research Institute (MRI), has created a culture of strong collaborations across disciplines. At Penn State, many researchers have the support of both their academic departments and the university-wide institutes, such as MRI. By encouraging crosscutting research, MRI and its sister institutes open up traditional silos of knowledge to the stimulus of other viewpoints and new ideas. This mingling of disciplines, often called “convergence,” brings together the physical and life sciences with engineering and computation to solve the most complex problems facing society today and in the future.
2DLM
ICAT
ATOMIC
CIMP-3D
Energy Institute
HESE
CNS MRSEC
PSIEE
Institute for Cyberscience
CDP
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