The microelectronics industry is nearing a tipping point. The silicon chips at the heart of everyday electronic devices are running into performance limits, raising the need for new materials and technologies to continue making faster, more efficient devices.
Researchers from Penn State and China鈥檚 Hebei University of Technology addressed this issue by uncovering a new property of a sensor material, enabling the team to develop a new type of flexible sensor that can accurately measure both temperature and physical strain simultaneously but separately to pinpoint various signals more precisely.
Mingyu Yu, doctoral candidate in materials science and engineering at Penn State, recently received the Graduate Student Research Award from the professional society AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces and Processing for innovative research in two-dimensional materials.
What鈥檚 the best way to precisely manipulate a material鈥檚 properties to the desired state? It may be straining the material鈥檚 atomic arrangement, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State. The team discovered that 鈥渁tomic spray painting鈥� of potassium niobate, a material used in advanced electronics, could tune the resulting thin films with exquisite control. The finding, published in Advanced Materials, could drive environmentally friendly advancements in consumer electronics, medical devices and quantum computing, the researchers said.
A simple biomaterial-based strategy that can influence the behavior of cells could pave the way for more effective medical treatments such as wound healing, cancer therapy and even organ regeneration, according to a research team at Penn State.
To enhance biosensor development via artificial intelligence (AI) and offer STEM education opportunities to K-12 students from underserved communities, the U.S. National Science Foundation recently awarded researchers at Penn State a three-year, $1.5 million grant.
Batteries power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles, with their performance hinging on the critical interface between the electrode and electrolyte. Penn State and industry researchers have developed a method to observe this interface at a higher resolution, which could potentially reveal new ways to improve battery efficiency and lifespan.
When it comes to mating, two things matter for Heliconius butterflies: the look and the smell of their potential partner. The black and orange butterflies have incredibly small brains, yet they must process both sensory inputs at the same time 鈥� which is more than current artificial intelligence (AI) technologies can achieve without significant energy consumption. To make AI as smart as the butterflies, a team of Penn State researchers has created a multi-sensory AI platform that is both more advanced and uses less energy than other AI technologies.
Known for its ability to withstand extreme environments and high voltages, silicon carbide (SiC) is a semiconducting material made up of silicon and carbon atoms arranged into crystals that is increasingly becoming essential to modern technologies like electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, telecommunications infrastructure and microelectronics.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has awarded $600,000 to Penn State鈥檚 Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance (SCIA) to develop a series of educational courses, workshops, and paid academic and industrial internships focused on workforce development in Pennsylvania for the growing semiconductor industry.
The future of technology has an age-old problem: rust. When iron-containing metal reacts with oxygen and moisture, the resulting corrosion greatly impedes the longevity and use of parts in the automotive industry. While it鈥檚 not called 鈥渞ust鈥� in the semiconductor industry, oxidation is especially problematic in two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor materials, which control the flow of electricity in electronic devices, because any corrosion can render the atomic-thin material useless. Now, a team of academic and enterprise researchers has developed a synthesis process to produce a 鈥渞ust-resistant鈥� coating with additional properties ideal for creating faster, more durable electronics.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) has awarded $600,000 to Penn State鈥檚 Silicon Carbide Innovation Alliance (SCIA) to develop a series of educational courses, workshops, and paid academic and industrial internships focused on workforce development in Pennsylvania for the growing semiconductor industry.
A discovery that uncovered the surprising way atoms arrange themselves and find their preferred neighbors in multi-principal element alloys (MPEA) could enable engineers to 鈥渢une鈥� these unique and useful materials for enhanced performance in specific applications ranging from advanced power plants to aerospace technologies, according to the researchers who made the finding.
Transition metal carbides (TMCs) and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are emerging as key players with transformative potential across various industries.
Move over, graphene. There鈥檚 a new, improved two-dimensional material in the lab. Borophene, the atomically thin version of boron first synthesized in 2015, is more conductive, thinner, lighter, stronger and more flexible than graphene, the 2D version of carbon. Now, researchers at Penn State have made the material potentially more useful by imparting chirality 鈥� or handedness 鈥� on it, which could make for advanced sensors and implantable medical devices.
Using advanced imaging techniques, an international team led by Penn State researchers found that the material that a semiconductor chip device is built on, called the substrate, responds to changes in electricity much like the semiconductor on top of it.
For soft tissue to recover and regrow, it needs blood vessels to grow to deliver oxygen and nutrients. Sluggish vascularization, however, can slow or even prevent recovery and regrowth of lost or damaged soft tissue after a severe injury or serious illness such as cancer.
Leafhoppers, a common backyard insect, secrete and coat themselves in tiny mysterious particles that could provide both the inspiration and the instructions for next-generation technology, according to a new study led by Penn State researchers.
Today's most advanced chips house nearly 50 billion transistors within a space no larger than your thumbnail. The task of cramming even more transistors into that confined area has become more and more difficult, according to Penn State researchers.
Six Penn State materials researchers have received the 2023 Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award, covering a wide range of research with societal impact.
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