Materials scientists are quite used to looking at nature to find inspiration for new designs and functionalities. The living world is full of complex and sophisticated materials (from bones and seashells to cartilage and skin) that provide the most varied and extraordinary properties and functions. We have paid attention to this strategy of ‘architecturing materials’ […]
In the last decades, a mathematical description of symmetries in nature called topology has been applied to describe and predict new electronic and magnetic properties of materials. A very simple aspect of topology connects a symmetry in the atomic structure of a crystal with a class of materials. Many materials that we know or use […]
The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to head to space on Dec. 18, 2021. With it, astronomers hope to find the first galaxies to form in the universe, will search for Earthlike atmospheres around other planets and accomplish many other scientific goals. I am an astronomer and the principal investigator for the Near Infrared […]
If you’re like me and spent hours of your day sitting at a desk typing on a keyboard, I am sure you have imagined how cool it’d be to just have your thoughts translated into typed words just like that. Well, new research on brain implants recently published in the journal Nature has shown that […]
Twistology could be the study of unexpected changes or developments in stories or situations, from coups d’état to the fatherhood of Darth Vader. In condensed matter physics there is something similar, although the preferred name is twistronics (from twist and electronics). It is understood as the study of how the angle (the twist) between layers […]
Since the discovery of graphene, a wide diversity of atomic-layer-thick, two-dimensional (2D) materials with varied properties have emerged. Of particular interest are those that exhibit semiconducting behaviour, such as hexagonal boron nitride (hBN). hBN is isoelectronic to graphene and has also a honeycomb lattice formed by alternating nitrogen and boron atoms, but in contrast to […]
Over the past several decades researchers have thought how materials and device architectures can efficiently convert solar radiation into electrical power through the photovoltaic effect. Those efforts have led to different methods and processes to produce green energy. In this context, organic photovoltaic (OPV) technology has received considerable attention because it indeed constitutes a new […]
Specialisation has necessarily led to the fragmentation of knowledge, creating loosely connected disciplines in which discoveries in one area are hardly known in others. This implies that the flow of knowledge is severely restricted among disciplines or even among different areas within the same discipline. In recent decades, different approaches have been proposed to overcome […]
The cryptocurrency bitcoin now uses up more electricity a year than the whole of Argentina, according to recent estimates from the University of Cambridge. That’s because the creation of a bitcoin, in a process called mining, is achieved by powerful computers that work night and day to decode and solve complex mathematical problems. The energy […]
Common glass, used in windows or bottles, for example, is made by heating a mixture of calcium oxide (lime), sodium carbonate (soda), and silicon (IV) oxide (sand), resulting in a calcium silicate. This silicate is not a crystal but a solid in which atoms are random and have no long-range ordered pattern. These kind of […]
