Clean energy could lead to scarce materials
Rising demand for wind turbines and electric vehicles could strain supplies of some rare earth metals.
Seeing the music in nature
From spider webs to tangled proteins, Markus Buehler finds the connections between mathematics, molecules and materials.
Buehler to receive Outstanding Young Investigator Award from the Materials Research Society
Honored for highly innovative and creative work in computational modeling
A new dimension for solar energy
Innovative 3-D designs from an MIT team can more than double the solar power generated from a given area.
Buckle in
Inspired by a toy, the ‘buckliball’ — a collapsible structure fabricated from a single piece of material — represents a new class of 3-D, origami-like structures.
Fiber laser points to woven 3-D displays
A fiber that can emit light along its length in any direction may herald flexible 3-D displays and medical tools that activate therapeutic compounds with bursts of light.
Catching some rays — lots of them
New MIT design for a metamaterial could be far more efficient at capturing sunlight than existing solar cells.
Preventing contamination in recycling
New study examines ways to prevent accumulation of impurities in recycling aluminum.
Making droplets drop faster
New nanopatterned surfaces could improve the efficiency of powerplants and desalination systems.
A new twist on nanowires
Technology developed at MIT can control the composition and structure of these tiny wires as they grow.
Liquid batteries could level the load
MIT team makes progress toward goal of inexpensive grid-scale batteries that could help make intermittent renewable energy sources viable.
Revealing how a battery material works
MIT team uncovers a reason why the hottest new material for rechargeable batteries works so well.
New tool for analyzing solar-cell materials
Website offers a way of optimizing solar cell materials and production.