On an otherwise normal day in the lab, Eva Andrei didn’t expect to make a major discovery. Andrei, a physics professor at Rutgers University, was using graphite – the material in pencils – to calibrate a scanning tunneling microscope. As part of the process, she turned on a very powerful magnetic field. When she looked up to see the material’s electronic spectrum, she was astonished. “We saw huge, beautiful peaks up there, just incredible. And they didn’t make any sense,” she recalled.
Remembering a lecture she’d recently attended, she realized the graphite had separated out into sheets just one atom thick. This material, known as graphene, has bizarre electronic properties. But even for graphene, the spectrum she saw was strange. In fact, no one had ever seen anything like it before. As Andrei described it, her colleague “went berserk in the corridor and just yelled ‘Graphene!’” Andrei had made a serendipitous discovery – a new electric phenomenon.
This was neither the first nor last time that electrons’ movement in graphene would surprise and elate scientists. One of the most impressive things about graphene is how fast electrons move through it. They travel through it more than 100 times faster than they do through the silicon used to make computer chips. In theory, this suggests that manufacturers could use graphene to make superfast transistors for faster, thinner, more powerful touch-screens, electronics, and solar cells.
Materials scientists discover powerful effect that could benefit robotics, aviation, medicine and other fields
Imagine repeatedly lifting 165 times your weight without breaking a sweat – a feat normally reserved for heroes like Spider-Man.
New Brunswick engineers have discovered a simple, economical way to make a nano-sized device that can match the friendly neighborhood Avenger, on a much smaller scale. Their creation weighs 1.6 milligrams (about as much as five poppy seeds) and can lift 265 milligrams (the weight of about 825 poppy seeds) hundreds of times in a row.
Its strength comes from a process of inserting and removing ions between very thin sheets of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), an inorganic crystalline mineral compound. It’s a new type of actuator – devices that work like muscles and convert electrical energy to mechanical energy.
The Rutgers discovery – elegantly called an “inverted-series-connected (ISC) biomorph actuation device” – is described in a study published online today in the journal Nature.
“We found that by applying a small amount of voltage, the device can lift something that’s far heavier than itself,” said Manish Chhowalla, professor and associate chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering. “This is an important finding in the field of electrochemical actuators. The simple restacking of atomically thin sheets of metallic MoS2 leads to actuators that can withstand stresses and strains comparable to or greater than other actuator materials.”
Researchers at Binghamton and Rutgers Universities, USA, have developed a self-healing fungi concrete mix that could help solve the issue of crumbling infrastructure – caused by cracks in the structure’s concrete. The team received support from the Research Foundation for the State University of New York’s Sustainable Community Transdisciplinary Area of Excellence Program.
Assistant Professor Congrui Jin, Binghamton University, commented, ‘Without proper treatment, cracks tend to progress further and eventually require costly repair […] If micro-cracks expand and reach the steel reinforcement, not only the concrete will be attacked, but also the reinforcement will be corroded, as it is exposed to water, oxygen, possibly CO2 and chlorides, leading to structural failure.’
The team found that mixing Trichoderma reesei – a fungus – with the concrete could solve this issue. The fungus lies dormant in the mix until water and oxygen reach it through cracks in the concrete.
‘With enough water and oxygen, the dormant fungal spores will germinate, grow and precipitate calcium carbonate to heal the cracks,’ commented Jin. ‘When the cracks are completely filled and ultimately no more water or oxygen can enter inside, the fungi will again form spores. As the environmental conditions become favorable in later stages, the spores could be wakened again.’
Further research is needed to ensure the fungus can survive in the concrete mix.
To find out more on materials science, packaging and engineering news, visit our website IOM3 at or follow us on Twitter @MaterialsWorld for regular news updates.
We don’t want to go any further into 2019 without first acknowledging all the wonderful moments from 2018. Without the support from all of you none of this would have been possible!
GlassRoots was happy to host a meeting of the Newark STEAM (STEM + Art) Coalition - a group of nonprofits, schools, and companies working together to provide the STEM education and experiences students need to succeed in college, career, and life. We think they agreed that GlassRoots is full STEAM ahead! (Here Kate Dowd provides a demonstration of one of the components of our Volcano Program, developed in coordination with Rutgers Newark’s Earth Science department!)
