Highlights

2020 Research Highlights

College Prep for Blind/Low-Vision Students
Education & Outreach

A five-day STEM Extension program in July 2017 provided ten blind or low-vision college-bound students with a full-access experience in college chemistry and physics labs as part of Summer Academy,

Engaging Center Students & Postdocs
Education & Outreach

The annual MRSEC student survey (with 57 respondents) highlighted several areas of interest, including science communication (70%), networking with industry (65%), interviewing for jobs (72%) and m

Electric-Field Control of Polar Vortices
IRG1 - Layered Ferroics

Systems that exhibit phase competition, order parameter coexistence, and emergent order parameter topologies consti

Large Property Enhancements through Minute Symmetry Breaking
IRG1 - Layered Ferroics

The design of new or enhanced functionality in materials is traditionally viewed as requiring the discovery of new chemical compositions through synthesis.

Substrate-driven Chemotactic Assembly in Enzyme Cascade
IRG2 - Nanomotors

Enzymatic catalysis is essential to cell survival.

Acoustic Regulated Rheotaxis of Catalytic Micromotors
IRG2 - Nanomotors

The H2O2 powered bimetallic micromotors can respond to shear flow and exhibit rheotactic behavior.

Nickel Magnetic Metalattices
IRG3 - Metalattices

We synthesized nanoporous magnetic metalattices by high pressure confined chemical vapor deposition of nickel into silica sphere nanotemplates.

Functional nanostructure synthesis
IRG4 - Phototonic Assemblies

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) nanostructures that exhibit a switchable metal-insulator transition are difficult to synthesize in solution, in part because there are several closely related VOx 

Nanowire orientation and assembly
IRG4 - Phototonic Assemblies

Microscale photoresist posts were used to concentrate the electric field gradient generated by a vertically applied AC electric field.

2019 Research Highlights

Science Camps for Blind and Low-vision Students

The Penn State MRSEC partnered with Science-U summer camps to pilot a half-day STEM program for college-bound high school students who are blind or visually impaired.

Enhanced diffusion of enzymes induced by changes in conformation fluctuations
IRG 2 - Nanomotors

The diffusivity of enzymes is enhanced when they are catalytically active, and it was suggested that this enhancement could be correlated to their exothermicity.

Lead Zirconate Titanate MEMS Ultrasound Arrays
IRG 2 - Nanomotors

Acoustics arrays can be used for imaging, directing the motion of particles, and (at high intensities) therapeutic applications.

Well-ordered Colloid "Compounds"
IRG 3 - Metalattices

We have synthesized large area, well ordered binary crystals composed of two different sizes of silica colloid spheres as small as 20 nm in diameter.

Nanowire Assembly Enables Switchable Broadband Polarizers
IRG 4 - Photonic Assemblies

Gold nanowire lattices were formed by electric field directed assembly and reconfigured on-demand between two different functional states, in the form of broadband polarizers.

Subatomic microscopy as a key to materials design
IRG1 - Layered Ferroics

Layered complex oxides offer an unusually rich materials platform for emergent phenomena through many built-in design knobs such as varied topologies, chemical ordering schemes and geometric tuning

Learning from Data to Design Acentric Materials
IRG1 - Layered Ferroics

MRSEC researchers have developed an informatics-guided ab initio approach to accelerate the design and discovery of noncentrosymmetric materials, integrating group theory, informatics and density-f

2018 Research Highlights

MRSEC Tour Guide Team
Education & Outreach

The Millennium Science Complex hosts user facilities including the Nanofabrication Lab, the Materials Characterization Lab, and the Materials Computation Center.

Controlling the 'coffee ring effect' to design coatings, cosmetics, and spray drying
IRG 2 - Nanomotors

Coffee rings form during the evaporation of colloidal suspensions.

Single-crystal Semiconductor Core Fibers
IRG 3 - Metalattices

The availability of high-quality semiconductors in fiber form could be transformative in the vision of all-fiber optoelectronics.

Correlated Metals as Transparent Conductors
IRG1 - Layered Ferroics

Transparent conductors are materials that are transparent in the visible spectrum and electrically conducting.

Polar Vortices in Oxide Superlattices
IRG1 - Layered Ferroics

The complex interplay of spin, charge, orbital and lattice degrees of freedom supports exotic physical phenomena.

All-dielectric Near-infrared Artificial Mirror
IRG4 - Photonic Assemblies

A dielectric mirror comprised of a cross-shaped amorphous silicon nanoresonator array was designed to achieve 99.8% reflectivity and zero reflection phase at the wavelength of 0.99 μm.

High-precision quantum anomalous Hall state
Seed

The discovery of the quantum Hall (QH) effect led to the realization of a topological electronic state with dissipationless currents circulating in one direction along the edge of a two dimensional