Controlling a material with voltage
Technique could let a small electrical signal change materials’ electrical, thermal, and optical characteristics.
Magnetic fields make the excitons go ’round
Theorists find a new way to improve efficiency of solar cells by overcoming exciton “traps.”
Physicists find a new way to push electrons around
Discovery might ultimately lead to new, more energy-efficient transistors and microchips.
Light pulses control graphene’s electrical behavior
Finding could allow ultrafast switching of conduction, and possibly lead to new broadband light sensors.
Getting a charge out of water droplets
Water condensing and jumping from a superhydrophobic surface can be harnessed to produce electricity.
A new way to make sheets of graphene
Technique might enable advances in display screens, solar cells, or other devices.
Getting more electricity out of solar cells
New MIT model can guide design of solar cells that produce less waste heat, more useful current.
Excitons observed in action for the first time
Technique developed at MIT reveals the motion of energy-carrying quasiparticles in solid material.
Strain can alter materials’ properties
New field of "strain engineering" could open up areas of materials research with many potential applications.
Two-dimensional material shows promise for optoelectronics
Team creates LEDs, photovoltaic cells, and light detectors using novel one-molecule-thick material.
Power (of electronics) to the people
Alumna Ayah Bdeir’s fast-growing startup littleBits, which sells connectable electronic modules, is helping people understand and build creatively with electronics.
Graphene can host exotic new quantum electronic states at its edges
New approach to use of 2-D carbon material opens up unexpected properties, could unleash new uses.
3 Questions: Randolph Kirchain on the spread of electronic waste
New study provides a comprehensive look at where a steadily growing quantity of old computers, televisions, and phones end up.
New graphene treatment could unleash new uses
MIT team develops simple, inexpensive method that could help realize material’s promise for electronics, solar power, and sensors.
Persuading light to mix it up with matter
MIT team documents a never-before-seen coupling of photons with electrons on the surface of an exotic crystal.