Materials Sciences

Dutch researcher Michiel Blauw has described the physical limitations of the plasma-etching of deep, narrow microstructures in silicon. His results have led to such an improvement in the etching process that trenches with a depth more than 30 times their width can now be made. This is important for the production of sensitive sensors.

Blauw investigated fluorine-based plasma etching processes. A plasma with a high ion-density ’burns’ a small hole in silicon. Many applications requi

Purdue University scientists have uncovered an unusual material that could lead to non-metallic magnets, which might be lighter, cheaper and easier to fabricate than magnets made of metal.

A team of researchers, including Paul G. Wenthold, has analyzed a radical hydrocarbon molecule whose electrons behave differently than they should, according to well-known principles. The compound is not the only molecule that exhibits such odd behavior in its surrounding cloud of electrons, but it is the

If manufacturing is entering the “Golden Age” of nanotechnology, then carbon nanotubes are the “Golden Child.” In recent years, these tubes of graphite many times thinner than a human hair have become a much-touted emerging technology because of their potential ability to add strength and other important properties to materials.

Adding carbon nanotubes to plastics and other polymers has potential to make automobile and airplane bodies stronger and lighter, and textiles more tear-resistant.

A research team at the Department of Physics at the Public University of Navarre are developing new, “intelligent” materials which have the capacity for changing shape when a magnetic field is applied to them. These materials may be used for the generation of ultrasonic signals, in the manufacture of loudspeakers and sonars or in actuators, amongst other applications. The project is a three-year one.

Specifically, the group at the Public University of Navarre is working on the optimisation

Weizmann Institute scientists have created a new type of nanotube built of gold, silver and other nanoparticles. The tubes exhibit unique electrical, optical and other properties, depending on their components, and as such, may form the basis for future nanosensors, catalysts and chemistry-on-a-chip systems.

The study, published in Angewandte Chemie, was performed by Prof. Israel Rubinstein, Dr. Alexander Vaskevich, postdoctoral associate Dr. Michal Lahav and doctoral student Tali Sehayek,

Computer simulations play an essential role in the study of complex fluids – liquids that contain particles of different sizes. Such liquids have numerous applications, which depend on a fundamental understanding of their behavior. But the two main techniques for the atomistic simulation of liquids – the molecular dynamics technique and the Monte Carlo method – have limitations that greatly reduce their effectiveness.

As reported in the Jan. 23 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters,