MRS Bulletin Materials News Podcast MRS Bulletin

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Antonio Dominguez-Alfaro from the University of Cambridge, UK about the development of a single-step manufacturing approach for a multimaterial 3D-printing method. The research team created two inks. One ink is a polymeric deep eutectic solvent – polyDES – made by combining and heating two salts to form a deep eutectic monomer and adding a photo-initiator to allow the ink to be cured. This ink is an ionic conductor so can capture signals from neurons inside a biological system. The other ink was based on the polymer Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS), which is commonly used in bioelectronics as a mixed electronic and ionic conductor. The work resolves many challenges of applying additive manufacturing in the field of bioelectronics. This work was published in a recent issue of Advanced Science. 

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Elizabeth Wilson interviews postdoctoral researcher M. Iqbal Bakti Utama of Northwestern University about a method allowing single photon production without defect. Aryl diazonium chemistry has been used in the past to functionalize the surface of carbon nanotubes. Utama’s group found that this chemistry also works for tungsten diselenide surfaces. The group immersed tungsten diselenide monolayers into an aqueous solution of 4-nitrobenzene-diazonium tetrafluoroborate. The electrophilic molecules withdraws electrons from the monolayer, creating aryl diazonium radicals. These radicals react with each other to form nitrophenyl oligomer chains. Instead of binding covalently to the monolayer surface, the oligomers form an adlayer that is physisorbed on the tungsten diselenide surface. The spectra of photons generated when the research team irradiated the coated surface was vastly simpler than the uncoated monolayer. This work was published in Nature Communications.

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Irmgard Bischofberger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology about her investigation of how chirality emerges in nature. She uses liquid crystal molecules of disodium chromoglycate in her studies. When the molecules are dissolved in water, they form linear rods. The research group then forces the rods through a microfluidic cell, causing the rods to assemble into spiral structures without mirror symmetry. The achiral structure transformed into a chiral one. What is unique, says Bischofberger, is that the new material is composed of non-chiral building blocks. This work was published in a recent issue of Nature Communications. 

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Eric Pop, Xiangjin Wu, and Asir Intisar Khan from Stanford University about their work building a phase-change memory superlattice at the nanoscale. They created the superlattice by alternating layers of antimony-tellurium nanoclusters with a nanocomposite made from germanium, antimony, and tellurium (GST467). Each layer is ~2 nm thick and the superlattice consists of 15 periods of these alternating layers. The microstructural properties of GST467 and its high crystallization temperature facilitate both faster switching speed and improved stability. The device operates at low voltage and shows promise for high-density multi-level data storage. This work was published in a recent issue of Nature Communications. 

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Magalí Lingenfelder from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland about her group’s discovery of the switching mechanism behind H-bond-linked two-dimensional networks. The hydrogen bonding ability was tuned by comparing carboxylates to aldehydes. Lingenfelder’s group found that the ability of the structure to switch between an open structure to a close-packed one is governed by a synergistic combination of energetic contributions from both the adsorbate/adsorbate and absorbate/substrate interactions. This work was published in a recent issue of ACS Nano. 

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Aram Amassian from North Carolina State University about his group’s achievements using RoboMapper, a materials acceleration platform. In researchers’ quest to run environmentally-conscious laboratories, Amassian offers a solution that focuses on characterization of materials. Having found that characterization generates a lot of energy, his group developed an automated approach to screening small samples in order to identify ones that warranted more in-depth study. By using their automated approach, the researchers found quantitative structure–property relationships for wide-bandgap perovskites. This work was published in a recent issue of Matter.