Featured series 
Tag: materials science
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Nation & World
Keeping cool without warming the planet
Harvard scientists have developed a revolutionary new mechanism that could unlock environmentally friendly air conditioning.
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Nation & World
Identifying exotic properties
Though they have unusual properties that could be useful in everything from superconductors to quantum computers, topological materials are frustratingly difficult to predictably produce. To speed up the process, Harvard researchers in a series of studies develop methods for efficiently identifying new materials that display topological properties.
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Nation & World
A trap for greenhouse gas
A team of researchers has developed a novel class of materials that enable a safer, cheaper, and more energy-efficient process for removing greenhouse gas from power-plant emissions.
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Nation & World
An introduction to rebuilding the body
A new course at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is bringing students up to speed on biomedical engineering, preparing them to contribute to University research, pursue summer internships, or take an idea conceived in the classroom to the next stage of development.
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Nation & World
Have silicon switches met their match?
Silicon has few serious competitors as the material of choice in the electronics industry. Now, Harvard researchers have engineered a quantum material called a correlated oxide to perform comparably with the best silicon switches.
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Nation & World
Battery offers renewable energy breakthrough
A team of Harvard scientists and engineers has demonstrated a new type of battery that could fundamentally transform the way electricity is stored on the grid, making power from renewable energy sources such as wind and sun far more economical and reliable.
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Nation & World
Advancing science and technology
The National Science Foundation is awarding grants to create three new science and technology centers this year, with two of them based in Cambridge. The two multi-institutional grants total $45 million over five years.
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Nation & World
New coating creates ‘superglass’
A new transparent, bioinspired coating makes ordinary glass tough, self-cleaning, and incredibly slippery. It could be used to create durable, scratch-resistant lenses for eyeglasses, self-cleaning windows, improved solar panels, and new medical diagnostic devices.
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Nation & World
Map to renewable energy?
Researchers hoping to make the next breakthrough in renewable energy now have plenty of new avenues to explore — Harvard researchers this week released a database of more than 2 million molecules that might be useful in the construction of organic solar cells for the production of renewable energy.
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Nation & World
New professor for SEAS, Wyss
Jennifer A. Lewis, an internationally recognized leader in 3-D printing and biomimetic materials, has been appointed as the first Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and as a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
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Nation & World
New device hides from infrared cameras
A new device invented at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) can absorb 99.75 percent of infrared light that shines on it. When activated, it appears black to infrared cameras.
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Nation & World
Applied physics as art
Harvard researchers spray-paint ultrathin coatings that change color with only a few atoms’ difference in thickness.
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Nation & World
Super gel
A team of experts in mechanics, materials science, and tissue engineering at Harvard has created an extremely stretchy and tough gel that may suggest a new method for replacing damaged cartilage in human joints.
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Nation & World
Fuel cell keeps going after hydrogen runs out
Materials scientists at Harvard have demonstrated that a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC), which converts hydrogen into electricity, can also store electrochemical energy like a battery. This fuel cell can continue to produce power for a short time after its fuel has run out.
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Nation & World
Now, ice won’t stick
A Harvard team of researchers has invented a way to keep any metal surface free of ice and frost. The treated surfaces quickly shed even tiny, incipient condensation droplets or frost, simply through gravity.
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Nation & World
Building invisibility cloaks starts small
Working at a scale applicable to infrared light, a Harvard team has used extremely short and powerful laser pulses to create 3-D patterns of tiny silver dots within a material. Those suspended metal dots are essential for building futuristic devices like invisibility cloaks.
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Nation & World
For cutting-edge biomedical materials, try corn
One might expect, these days, to find corn products in food, fuel, and fabric, but a corn-based glue that can heal an injured eyeball? That’s a-maize-ing.
