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Short peptide sequences can self-assemble into molecular fibers through a series of steps. © Stefan Schuhmacher / MPI-P Tiny molecules, known as peptides, can assemble into honeycomb-like fibers filled with water. The blueprint for these fibers lies in a very short amino acid sequence, as researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, the University of Ulm, and Ulm University Hospital have now demonstrated. The blueprints provide rules for building ordered ma

Liz McCue | University Communication and Marketing A Husker research team’s latest milestone could open the door to broader use of a class of materials whose electrical properties may someday power next-generation electronics, high-density energy storage, improved computer memory and new strategies for cooling. In a new paper published in Science, University of Nebraska–Lincoln physicists Xiaoshan Xu, Alexei Gruverman and Evgeny Tsymbal demonstrated that hafnium oxide — a tou

Schematic illustration of Ta 2 NiSe 5 with its quasi-1D chain structure and coupling to electronic instabilities Zhang et al. demonstrate that the debated 326-K phase transition in Ta2NiSe5 involves a collaboration of three microscopic factors The excitonic insulator is a macroscopic condensate of electron-hole pairs, i.e., excitons, predicted to emerge in a narrow-gap semiconductor or semimetal. Despite apparent analogies to a superconductor, which is a macroscopic condensat

Design and synthesis of lattice-matched and mismatched 2DP vdW heterostructures with sharp interfaces. In a recent study published in Nature, an international team of researchers reports, for the first time, lattice-defined 2D vdW heterostructures for organic 2D crystals at near-zero twist. On-water surface synthesis enables sequential assembly of chemically distinct 2D polymers to be stacked with defined lattice registry, while introducing a new lattice-control knob through

Researchers have shown that tiny wrinkles in graphene can change the material’s electrical properties. By harnessing this characteristic, scientists may one day control electricity in atomically thin materials — such as graphene — by changing their shape instead of adding new chemicals or materials, potentially powering more responsive sensors and ultrathin electronic devices. Credit: Mario Norton/Rice University. All Rights Reserved. Tiny wrinkles could reveal new behaviors

Scientists have shown that a material treated for 40 years as a uniform, textbook superconductor is in fact a patchwork of different crystal structures throughout its bulk, using one of the latest 3D imaging techniques to see deep inside the crystal for the first time. High-temperature superconductivity is widely regarded as one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the past 40 years. It promises technologies built on electricity that flows with zero resistance an