The days of self-assembling nanoparticles taking hours to form a film over a microscopic-sized wafer are over. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have devised a technique whereby self-assembling nanoparticle arrays can form a highly ordered thin film over macroscopic distances in one minute.

Think those flat, glassy solar panels on your neighbour’s roof are the pinnacle of solar technology? Think again.

The Office of the Vice President for Research at Wayne State University announced today the finalization of a license agreement with a new start-up company, Detroit Materials, Inc., for a Wayne State University patented portfolio of high-strength low-alloy steels and cast irons for demanding applications in the defense, off-highway, tooling and automotive industries.

This ACS video explains the next wonder material - graphene.

The new Metals Lab involves a multiscale, three-dimensional correlative imaging workflow to better understand and develop metallic alloys for the automotive, aerospace, nuclear, and oil & gas industries.

Two breakthrough studies track the nanoscale structural changes that degrade battery performance during cycles of charge and discharge.

A simple, inexpensive spray method that deposits a graphene film can heal manufacturing defects and produce a high-quality graphene layer on a range of substrates, report researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Korea University.

Ferroelectric materials–substances in which there is a slight and reversible shift of positive and negative charges–have surfaces that are coated with electrical charges like roads covered in snow.  Accumulations can obscure lane markings, making everyone unsure which direction traffic ought to flow; in the case of ferroelectrics, these accumulations are other charges that “screen” the true polarization of different regions of the material.

In the wake of recent off-shore oil spills, and with the growing popularity of “fracking” — in which water is used to release oil and gas from shale — there’s a need for easy, quick ways to separate oil and water. Now, scientists have developed coatings that can do just that. Their report on the materials, which also could stop surfaces from getting foggy and dirty, appears in the American Chemical Society's ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

Technique might enable advances in display screens, solar cells, or other devices.

A simple new technique to form interlocking beads of water in ambient conditions could prove valuable for applications in biological sensing, membrane research and harvesting water from fog.

This gift from science just keeps on giving. Measurements taken at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) show why a material already known to be good at separating components of natural gas also can do something trickier: help convert one chemical to another, a process called catalysis. The discovery is a rare example of a laboratory-made material easily performing a task that biology usually requires a complex series of steps to accomplish.