NEWSROOM

The formation of metal hydrides is important to a wide range of energy technologies, from hydrogen storage to fusion materials. Researchers used palladium (Pd) nanoparticles, which have a high hydrogen affinity and can be precisely synthesized, as a model system for studying the insertion of hydrogen into a metal. They synthesized Pd nanoparticles, interconnected into assemblies with a high density of Σ3(111) grain boundaries (GBs), to probe the role of GBs in hydridation. Th

In magnetic materials with antisymmetric exchange interactions, novel particle-like spin textures called magnetic skyrmions can appear and be manipulated by electrons. First observed in 2009, they have been created and controlled at room temperature in many materials. Skyrmions, as nonvolatile information carriers, are key in electronic and spintronic devices. Their size can be just a few nanometers, enabling high storage densities. They require low current to move, are topol

MIT researchers have developed a lightweight polymer film that is nearly impenetrable to gas molecules, raising the possibility that it could be used as a protective coating to prevent solar cells and other infrastructure from corrosion, and to slow the aging of packaged food and medicines. The polymer, which can be applied as a film mere nanometers thick, completely repels nitrogen and other gases, as far as can be detected by laboratory equipment, the researchers found. Tha

What makes some plastics stick to metal without any glue? Osaka Metropolitan University scientists peered into the invisible adhesive zone that forms between certain plastics and metals — one atom at a time — to uncover how chemistry and molecular structure determine whether such bonds bend or break. Their insights clarify metal–plastic bonding mechanisms and offer guidelines for designing durable, lightweight, and more sustainable hybrid materials for use in transportation.

In a promising breakthrough, MIT physicists have today reported their observation of new key evidence of unconventional superconductivity in “magic-angle” twisted tri-layer graphene (MATTG) — a material that is made by stacking three atomically-thin sheets of graphene at a specific angle, or twist, that then allows exotic properties to emerge. MATTG has shown indirect hints of unconventional superconductivity and other strange electronic behavior in the past. The new discover

For the first time, a team at BESSY II has succeeded in demonstrating the one-dimensional electronic properties of a material through a highly refined experimental process. The samples consisted of short chains of phosphorus atoms that self-organise at specific angles on a silver substrate. Through sophisticated analysis, the team was able to disentangle the contributions of these differently aligned chains. This revealed that the electronic properties of each chain are indee