Materials science and engineering

Participants in the 2015 Rising Stars in Nuclear Science and Engineering Symposium at MIT

Inspiring a new generation of women in nuclear science and engineering

2015 Rising Stars in Nuclear Science and Engineering Symposium highlights outstanding new work and celebrates women in the field.

April 30, 2015

Bombardier beetles eject a liquid called benzoquinone, which they superheat and expel in an intense, pulsating jet. The explosive mechanism used by the beetle generates a spray that's much hotter than that of other insects that use the liquid, and propels the jet five times faster.

How some beetles produce a scalding defensive spray

New analysis shows how bombardier beetles produce an explosive defensive chemical jet.

April 30, 2015

Bendable glass devices

MIT Assistant Professor Juejun Hu melds fundamental materials science and new device designs to enable flexible photonics and other applications.

April 24, 2015

MIT chemical engineers have designed an implantable device that can deliver many drugs at once, allowing researchers to determine which drugs are the most effective against a patient's tumor.

How to identify drugs that work best for each patient

Implantable device could allow doctors to test cancer drugs in patients before prescribing chemotherapy.

April 22, 2015

A new film of carbon nanotubes cures composites for airplane wings and fuselages, using only 1 percent of the energy required by traditional, oven-based manufacturing processes.

Taking aircraft manufacturing out of the oven

New technique uses carbon nanotube film to directly heat and cure composite materials.

April 14, 2015

The renovation of the glass lab, forge, and foundry in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering was made possible by a fundraising campaign that has raised nearly $3 million to date.

The magic of glass and metal

DMSE reopens its renovated glass lab, forge, and foundry.

April 13, 2015

MIT Professor Yang Shao-Horn, center, speaks to Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage (CEES) researchers from MIT and Moscow State University during a meeting at the MIT Materials Processing Center in February. Listening are MIT Professor Paula Hammond (left) and Skoltech CEES Director Keith Stevenson, who is based in Moscow.

Fostering U.S.-Russia energy innovation

Skoltech Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage brings together researchers from MIT and two Russian institutes to develop advanced batteries and fuel cells.

April 10, 2015

As a mix of cancer cells and white blood cells flows through the microfluidic channel, sound waves from the transducers located on both sides of the channel guide them into separate channels, allowing the rare cancer cells to be isolated.

Using sound waves to detect rare cancer cells

Acoustic device can rapidly isolate circulating tumor cells from patient blood samples.

April 6, 2015

New materials to protect the brain

MIT graduate student Bo Qing studies synthetic gels that could be used in better equipment to protect against traumatic injuries.

March 24, 2015

Mechanically stimulating stem cells

MIT biological engineering graduate student Frances Liu is studying ways to alter mechanical properties of cell environments to produce desired chemical outputs.

March 20, 2015

Faculty highlight: Krystyn Van Vliet

MIT associate professor brings a materials scientist's understanding to biochemical behavior in stem cells and organ tissue.

March 18, 2015

Images show calcium ion influx into neurons as a result of magnetothermal excitation with alternating magnetic fields in the presence of magnetic nanoparticles.

Magnetic brain stimulation

New technique could lead to long-lasting localized stimulation of brain tissue without external connections.

March 12, 2015

U.S. News ranks graduate programs in engineering, business highly

MIT is home to No. 1 graduate engineering program; Sloan is No. 5 business school.

March 10, 2015

Two different forms of calcium carbonate have identical chemical composition, but look different and have different properties such as solubility. The flat, clear crystal is calcite, the pinkish multifaceted one is aragonite.

Mystery solved: Why seashells’ mineral forms differently in seawater

Century-old riddle about aragonite formation is unraveled by scientists’ atomistic simulation.

March 2, 2015

Simulations show the effects of dislocations in cerium dioxide on the redistribution of differently sized dopant atoms, replacing a cerium atom in the crystal lattice. The results reveal different amounts of segregation around the dislocation caused by the differently sized elements. The sizes of the other atoms are compared to a cesium atom (left, in black). The white dashed line shows the plane ...

New analysis shows ion slowdown in fuel cell material

Dislocations in oxides seen as promising electrolytes create a “traffic jam” for charged ions.