Materials science and engineering

Professor Rob MacFarlane is a professor of materials science and engineering at MIT.

3Q: Robert Macfarlane on cleaning your smartphone screen

Materials scientist explores why some household cleaners could harm the protective coating on a smartphone screen.

April 13, 2020

MIT engineers have developed magnetic nanoparticles (shown in white squares) that can stimulate the adrenal gland to produce stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.

Researchers achieve remote control of hormone release

Using magnetic nanoparticles, scientists stimulate the adrenal gland in rodents to control release of hormones linked to stress.

April 10, 2020

Clockwise from left: Gammacell irradiator in which N95 mask was tested; sodium chloride aerosol apparatus, built by Enze Tian for testing N95 mask filtration efficiency; section of an irradiated N95 mask being loaded into the testing apparatus.

Gamma radiation found ineffective in sterilizing N95 masks

Nuclear scientists and biomedical researchers team up to investigate whether treatment with gamma radiation could make N95 masks more reusable.

April 10, 2020

The process of how crystals form on a flat surface, as shown in this electron microscope image, has been difficult to study in detail until now.

Technique reveals how crystals form on surfaces

DNA-based self-assembling system sheds light on processes essential for semiconductors and nanotechnology.

April 1, 2020

This hearth from one of the Mesoamerican smelting furnaces, seen as it was being excavated by Dorothy Hosler and her team in Mexico, was among the sites that revealed that indigenous people were producing copper for the Spanish colonists.

Mesoamerican copper smelting technology aided colonial weaponry

Spanish conquerors depended on indigenous expertise to keep up their munitions supplies, archaeologists have found.

March 31, 2020

An iterative, multi-step process for training a neural network, as depicted at top left, leads to an assessment of the tradeoffs between two competing qualities, as depicted in graph at center. The blue line represents a so-called Pareto front, defining the cases beyond which the materials selection cannot be further improved. This makes it possible to identify specific categories of promising new...

Neural networks facilitate optimization in the search for new materials

Sorting through millions of possibilities, a search for battery materials delivered results in five weeks instead of 50 years.

March 26, 2020

Students from the first academic course to use MIT.nano's facilities pose in the facility's soft lithograpy space with technical instructor Scott Poesse (left).

Meet the first undergraduate users of MIT.nano

Micro/nano processing course fabricates devices in MIT.nano’s facilities.

March 25, 2020

A fusion community report recommends three science drivers and several new facilities to accelerate toward commercially relevant fusion power.

Fusion researchers endorse push for pilot power plant in US

Fusion energy community makes unified statement on priorities in report for Department of Energy Policy Advisory Group.

March 18, 2020

MIT’s graduate program in engineering has again earned a No. 1 spot in U.S. News and World Report’s annual rankings, a place it has held since 1990, when the magazine first ranked such programs.

MIT graduate engineering, business programs ranked highly by U.S. News for 2021

Graduate engineering program is No. 1 in the nation; MIT Sloan is No. 5.

March 17, 2020

An international research team used an advanced neural network machine-learning system to improve the accuracy of tests probing the plastic properties of materials — which can be important in a wide variety of industrial applications.

Deep learning for mechanical property evaluation

New technique allows for more precise measurements of deformation characteristics using nanoindentation tools.

March 16, 2020

Researchers confirmed the existence of electronic waves that are frozen at a transition temperature of 125 kelvins and start “dancing together” in a collective oscillating motion as the temperature is lowered. In this illustration, a red laser beam triggers the dance of the newly discovered electronic waves in magnetite.

Dancing electrons solve a longstanding puzzle in the oldest magnetic material

Physicists use extreme infrared laser pulses to reveal frozen electron waves in magnetite.

March 11, 2020

The 2020 MacVicar Faculty Fellows are: (clockwise from top left) Polina Anikeeva, Jacob White, William Tisdale, and Mary Fuller.

2020 MacVicar Faculty Fellows named

Anikeeva, Fuller, Tisdale, and White receive MIT's highest honor in undergraduate teaching.

March 9, 2020

An MIT team found a way to “recruit” normally disruptive quantum bits (qubits) in diamond to, instead, help carry out quantum operations. This approach could be used to help scale up quantum computing systems.

Novel method for easier scaling of quantum devices

System “recruits” defects that usually cause disruptions, using them to instead carry out quantum operations.

March 5, 2020

Afternoon light streams into MIT’s Lobby 7.

QS World University Rankings rates MIT No. 1 in 12 subjects for 2020

Institute ranks second in five subject areas.

March 3, 2020

Hand lotion, yogurt, and toothpaste are some examples of colloidal gels, which MIT researchers have now characterized in detail by studying movies of their microstructure.

Probing microscopic wiggles in squishy materials

Technique could help improve design of soft materials to withstand jostling during transport or settling due to gravity.