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Materials science and engineering

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For tropical growing regions in Brazil and some countries in Africa, differing soil and rock compositions make for a poor match for the fertilizers that are currently on the market. J-WAFS-funded MIT researchers seek to meet this challenge with a new type of fertilizer, and call for more interdisciplinary research to help close yield gaps.

Local rocks can yield more crops

J-WAFS-funded MIT research team shows a new method of fertilizer production can better suit the needs of farms in Africa and around the globe.

February 12, 2019

Introducing a small amount of strain into crystalline materials, such as diamond or silicon, can produce significant changes in their properties, researchers have found. The mechanical strain is represented here as a deformation in the diamond's shape.

Using artificial intelligence to engineer materials’ properties

New system of “strain engineering” can change a material’s optical, electrical, and thermal properties.

February 11, 2019

The 2018 Bose Research Fellows (standing) pose for a photo with (seated, l-r) President L. Rafael Reif, Judy Bose, and Provost Martin Schmidt.

Bose grants for 2018 fund research at the frontier of discovery

The prestigious awards are supporting five innovative projects that challenge established norms and have the potential to be world-changing.

February 11, 2019

MIT spring exchange students gather by Imperial College London's iconic Queen's Tower: (l-r) Lily Bailey, Michael Hiebert, Dain Kim, Sara Wilson.

A semester studying abroad at Imperial College London

Students say they're enthusiastic about the new MIT-Imperial Academic Exchange pilot program.

February 11, 2019

Solar cells made of perovskite have great promise, in part because they can easily be made on flexible substrates, like this experimental cell.

Unleashing perovskites’ potential for solar cells

New results show how varying the recipe could bring these materials closer to commercialization.

February 7, 2019

Eugene Fitzgerald

Eugene Fitzgerald appointed CEO and director of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology

Professor of materials science and engineering to lead MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore.

February 6, 2019

This illustration depicts the main elements of the system the team used: The multicolored slab at center is the metal layer being studied, the pale blue region at left is the electrolyte solution used as a source of hydrogen, the small blue dots are the hydrogen atoms, and the green laser beams at right are probing the process. The large cylinder at right is a probe used to indent the metal to tes...

Observing hydrogen’s effects in metal

Microscopy technique could help researchers design safer reactor vessels or hydrogen storage tanks.

February 4, 2019

$Experiments on ultra-thin copper-oxide ceramic superconductors performed by MIT researchers showed an unexpected disorderly, or “glassy,” arrangement of electrons, known as a “Wigner glass.” At left, “Fourier space,” or momentum space, shows the diffraction data that proved the tendency of the charge ripples to align in any direction, while the image at right displays the random placem...$

Surprising electronic disorder in a copper oxide-based ceramic

MIT researchers use resonant X-ray scattering measurements to reveal unexpected “Wigner glass” in desirable superconducting material.

January 28, 2019

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have designed the first fully flexible, battery-free “rectenna” — a device that converts energy from Wi-Fi signals into electricity — that could be used to power flexible and wearable electronics, medical devices, and sensors for the “internet of things.”

Converting Wi-Fi signals to electricity with new 2-D materials

Device made from flexible, inexpensive materials could power large-area electronics, wearables, medical devices, and more.

January 28, 2019

This illustration shows the 12 different forms that six-atom vacancy defects in graphene can have, as determined by the researchers. The pie chart shows the relative abundances that are predicted for each of these different forms.

Researchers catalog defects that give 2-D materials amazing properties

Theoretical analysis distinguishes observed “holes” from the huge list of hypothetically possible ones.

January 14, 2019

ACCESS aims to increase the number of underrepresented minorities in graduate programs at MIT and other research institutions.

ACCESS shows grad school's rigors and rewards

Undergraduates from across the country learn the benefits of continuing their education in chemistry, chemical engineering, and materials science.

January 9, 2019

First row, left to right: Suvrit Sra, Frances Ross, Pulkit Agrawal, Kevin O’Brien, Richard Linares, and Cathy Wu. Second row, left to right: Negar Reiskarimian, Jacob Andreas, Giovanni Traverso, Manya Ghobadi, and Ashwin Gopinath.

School of Engineering welcomes new faculty

Eleven new professors join the MIT community.

January 9, 2019

Professor Amy Glasmeier (left) and MIT sophomore Taimor Williams discuss his research project on cascading failures in critical infrastructure systems. Everything from grid design to energy policy to human factors and design influences these types of system failures, and the data surrounding them are immense and complex.

“You don’t learn this in class”

Students in the MIT Energy Initiative Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program build professional skills.

January 4, 2019

Work by researchers in the group of MIT materials science and engineering Professor Geoffrey Beach and colleagues in California, Germany, Switzerland and Korea, was featured on the covers of <i>Nature Nanotechnology</i> and <i>Advanced Materials.</i>

Controllable fast, tiny magnetic bits

MIT researchers show how to make and drive nanoscale magnetic quasi-particles known as skyrmions for spintronic memory devices.

January 3, 2019

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have recorded the “temporal coherence” of a graphene qubit — how long it maintains a special state that lets it represent two logical states simultaneously — marking a critical step forward for practical quantum computing.

Physicists record “lifetime” of graphene qubits

First measurement of its kind could provide stepping stone to practical quantum computing.

December 31, 2018