Materials Sciences

…and bring high power to small packages

Researchers have developed a new family of glasses that will bring higher power to smaller packages in lasers and optical devices and provide a less-expensive alternative to many other optical glasses and crystals, like sapphire. Called REAl(tm) Glass (Rare-earth – Aluminum oxide), the materials are durable, provide a good host for atoms that improve laser performance, and may extend the range of wavelengths that a single laser can currently

The interest sparked by airspace themes has once again brought together, in the Basque city of Donostia-San Sebastián, representatives of the main European enterprises in these sectors to deal with the applications of innovative materials capable of providing greater safety, longer life and increased wear to aircraft parts and components. Airspace sector experts from companies such as Sener, EADS-Airbus, CESA, amongst others, came together to analyse the applications of composite materials (composite

Researchers have created a new process to produce materials that can sift through similar, molecular brethren and latch onto chemicals that differ from each other in only their mirrored images. If it proves effective in large-scale experiments, the stable, relatively simple catalyst could impact the $100 billion pharmaceutical industry by helping sort biologically potent chemicals from related, yet less useful or even toxic, compatriots. Jay Switzer and colleagues at the University

If Mohini Sain has his way, cars of the future may be fitted with tough, durable and completely biodegradable bumpers made of hemp.

Sain, a professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry and Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, creates biocomposites from processed plant fibres. His latest research, published in the August issue of Materials Research Innovations and the July issue of Macromolecular Materials and Engineering, describes a way to create a

A highly durable and moreover self-lubricating material has seen the light of day at a thin film laboratory at Linköping University.

It is an alloy of boron suboxide and yttrium, BOY, and was grown by the physicist Denis Music. The discovery is put forward in his doctoral dissertation.

The element boron and its compounds have many interesting properties, but they have been difficult to exploit industrially because production involves extreme process conditions. To produce a crystal

A ceramic material reinforced with carbon nanotubes has been made by materials scientists at UC Davis. The new material is far tougher than conventional ceramics, conducts electricity and can both conduct heat and act as a thermal barrier, depending on the orientation of the nanotubes.

Ceramic materials are very hard and resistant to heat and chemical attack, making them useful for applications such as coating turbine blades, said Amiya Mukherjee, professor of chemical engineering and mater