Condensed Matter news

New exotic material could revolutionize electronics

New exotic material could revolutionize electronics

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Jun 15, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (53) | comments 10

Move over, silicon -- it may be time to give the Valley a new name. Physicists at the Department of Energy's (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have confirmed the existence ...


Team Finds Unexpected Hydrides Become Stable Metals at Pressure Near One Quarter Required to Metalize Pure Hydrogen Alone

Unexpected Hydrides Become Stable Metals at Pressure Near One Quarter Required to Metalize Pure Hydrogen Alone

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Oct 12, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (11) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- From detailed assessments of electronic structure, researchers at the University at Buffalo, Cornell University, Stony Brook University and Moscow State University discovered that unexpected ...


Physicists Find a World of Motion In the Mystery of Aging Glass

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Sep 19, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (11) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists super-cooled a liquid into glass in order to observe the slowing of particles. It's a material that still perplexes researchers despite thousands of years of household and industrial use.


Hydrogen-rich Material Promises Advances in Energy Transmission, Fuel Storage

Hydrogen-rich Material Promises Advances in Energy Transmission, Fuel Storage

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Aug 20, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (20) | comments 12

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Science, a joint institute of SLAC and Stanford University, have produced a hydrogen-rich alloy that could provide insight into ...


Ames Laboratory scientist using low-gravity space station lab to study crystal growth

Scientists use low-gravity space station lab to study crystal growth

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Sep 21, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (9) | comments 1

A research project 10 years in the making is now orbiting the Earth, much to the delight of its creator Rohit Trivedi, a senior metallurgist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. Equipment recently ...


Under Observation -- Restless Atoms Cause Materials to Age

Under Observation -- Restless Atoms Cause Materials to Age

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Sep 14, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Atoms have the habit of jumping through solids - a practice that physicists have recently been able to follow for the first time using a brand new method. This scientific advance was made ...


Getting to the roots of lethal hairs

Why they grow? Getting to the roots of lethal metal whiskers

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Sep 29, 2009 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (11) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- A short circuit can be quite hairy: satellites have failed, a NASA computer centre was repeatedly paralysed and the US public heath authority recalled thousands of pacemakers - all because ...


Physicists make crystal/liquid interface visible for first time

Physicists make crystal/liquid interface visible for first time

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Aug 11, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (11) | comments 13

"Imagine you're a water molecule in a glass of ice water, and you're floating right on the boundary of the ice and the water," proposes Emory University physicist Eric Weeks. "So how do you know if you're ...


Glass you can build with

Glass you can build with: Metallic glass that's stronger and lasts longer

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Mar 24, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (27) | comments 11

(PhysOrg.com) -- The normal structure of metals is crystalline. Glass, on the other hand, is amorphous. But it's possible to make amorphous forms of metal, metallic glasses, which can be remarkably strong, ...


researchers reveal the internal dance of water

Researchers reveal the internal dance of water

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Aug 12, 2009 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (21) | comments 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- Water is familiar to everyone - it shapes our bodies and our planet. But despite this abundance, the molecular structure of water has remained a mystery, with the substance exhibiting many ...


Storing a Lightning Bolt in Glass for Portable Power

Storing a Lightning Bolt in Glass for Portable Power

Physics / Condensed Matter

created May 05, 2009 | popularity 4 / 5 (21) | comments 9

(PhysOrg.com) -- Materials researchers at Penn State University have reported the highest known breakdown strength for a bulk glass ever measured. Breakdown strength, along with dielectric constant, determines ...


New material could expand applications and lower costs for solid oxide fuel cells

New Sulfur- and Coking-Tolerant Material Could Expand Applications for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Oct 01, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (11) | comments 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new ceramic material described in this week's issue of the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells - devices that generate electricity directly from a ...


Computation helps predict heat transfer in diamond

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Sep 22, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (8) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Cornell researcher Derek Stewart and collaborators have calculated the exact mechanism by which diamond conducts heat, a breakthrough that could lend insight into many fields, including electronics.


One of the most important problems in materials science solved

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Feb 23, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (24) | comments 39

Together with three colleagues Professor Peter Oppeneer of Uppsala University has explained the hitherto unsolved mystery in materials science known as 'the hidden order' - how a new phase arises and why. This discovery ...


Researchers take the lead out of piezoelectrics

Researchers take the lead out of piezoelectrics

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Nov 13, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

There is good news for the global effort to reduce the amount of lead in the environment and for the growing array of technologies that rely upon the piezoelectric effect. A lead-free alternative to the current ...