Category Archives: Materials
A theory of spin hall magnetoresistance to study magnetism at interfaces
The interactions between moving charges and magnetic fields can be quite complicated; more if we consider the quantum effects. One example is the collection of Hall effects.
Imagine that we have a conductor or a semiconductor through which a current […]
Soft robots of the future may depend on new materials that conduct electricity, sense damage and self-heal
Author: Michael Ford is a postdoctoral research associate in materials engineering at the Carnegie Mellon University Interactions between people and machines continue to increase.Tecnalia/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND
Robots used to be restricted to heavy lifting or fine detail work […]
Terminator: self-healing does no longer belongs to fiction only
About the author: Mikel Irigoyen is a PhD candidate at POLYMAT (UPV/EHU); his research is focused on the theoretical modelling of self-healing polymers.
As beautiful as it is, the natural world has always been a tough place to […]
How to identify a point defect in 2D transition metal dichalcogenides
A crystal lattice is formed by a repeated arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules. Due to the enormous amount of atoms involved it is extremely unlikely that all these will be arranged in perfect order. Some atoms will not be […]
Topology as a parameter: an artificial electronic high-order topological insulator
Quantum simulators—systems that can be engineered and manipulated at will—are useful platforms for verifying model Hamiltonians and understanding more complex or elusive quantum systems. The ability to trap and control particles with the help of well-controlled electromagnetic fields has led […]
The universal electronic mean free path law that wasn’t
The concept of mean free path is very simple and straightforward: the average distance travelled between collisions by the molecules in a gas, the electrons in a metallic crystal, the neutrons in a moderator, etc. Assuming a couple of things […]
Fully recyclable materials for food packaging
Author: Ainara Sangroniz is a researcher at POLYMAT, Department of Polymer Science and Technology, UPV/EHU
Packaging is essential to preserve the food quality and safety and to extend the shelf life of the stored product reducing the food waste. […]
Using an optical antenna to launch phonon polaritons in a low-dimensional van der Waals crystal
The so-called van der Waals materials consist of two-dimensional layers bound by weak van der Waals forces. After the isolation of graphene, the field of two-dimensional van der Waals materials has experienced an explosive growth and new families of […]
The extreme nanophotonics of the plasmonic nanopatch
For centuries, metals were employed in optical applications only as mirrors and gratings. New vistas opened up in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the discovery of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and the use of surface plasmon (collective electronic […]
First direct visualization by photoemision of how the Luttinger theorem works for Kondo lattices
Elements with 4f or 5f electrons in unfilled electron bands and their componuds , which have ions carrying magnetic moments but do not magnetically order, or only do so at very low temperatures, are generally known as heavy-fermion or heavy […]