MRS Bulletin Materials News Podcast

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Sheng Xu from Tohoku University, Japan about his lightweight shape memory alloy that retains superelasticity at temperatures as cold as 4 K and as hot as 400°C. This range is about 5 times wider than commercial shape memory alloys. Shape memory alloys are n

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Hang Zhang from Aalto University in Finland about his group’s creation of a composite material that is both stiff and self-healing. The composite involves a hydrogel where the long polymer chains are confined between nanosheets of synthetic hectorite. This m

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Lane Martin from Rice University about characterization of relaxor ferroelectrics, materials with noteworthy energy-conversion properties used in sensors and actuators. Martin’s research team investigated the material’s behavior at the nanoscale. The resear

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Sophia Chen interviews Beth Dickey from Carnegie Mellon University about her new approach to inducing ferroelectricity into a material. Dickey’s research group worked with a class of materials known as wurtzites. The researchers specifically studied aluminum nitride and zinc oxid

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Harry Atwater from the California Institute of Technology about his study on lightsail propulsion in order to understand how the device can be developed to do fly-by space travel riding a beam of laser light. Atwater’s research group made a square prototype

In this podcast episode, MRS Bulletin’s Laura Leay interviews Ashwin Shahini and Alan Taub from the University of Michigan about their group’s simulations and experimental work detailing the formation mechanisms, morphologies, and microstructures of an in situ Al/TiC metal matrix nanocomposites processed via salt flux