Functional materials are physical systems engineered so that their intrinsic properties—such as electrical conductivity, magnetization, optical response, ionic mobility, or mechanical deformation—can be deliberately modulated by external stimuli (e.g., electric or magnetic fields, light, temperature, stress, or chemical environment) to perform specific tasks. They encompass classes such as ferroelectrics, piezoelectrics, magnetoresistive and thermoelectric materials, shape-memory alloys, solid electrolytes, and stimuli-responsive polymers. In research and device design, functional materials serve as active components enabling sensing, actuation, energy conversion, information storage, and signal processing, with performance governed by their structure–property relationships across atomic, mesoscale, and macroscopic length scales.
Photonic integrated circuits route information with optical signals instead of relying only on electrical currents. Silicon (Si) and silicon nitride (SiNx) are excellent photonic platforms for waveguides, but they cannot ...
A single application of a "smart" self-repairing coating is being developed to dramatically extend rust protection for buildings, bridges, cars and other steel components.
Nanomaterials
Sep 15, 2026
0
131
Thermoelectric materials can directly convert heat into electricity, making them promising for recovering waste heat from factories, vehicles and other sources. They can also transport heat when an electric current is applied ...
General Physics
Sep 12, 2026
0
43
Imagine a construction site where the bricks are individual molecules and the "cranes" are microscopic needles so sharp they can feel a single atom. For decades, building at this scale was a laborious, time-consuming task ...
Nanomaterials
Sep 2, 2026
0
24
Plastic waste is one of the world's fastest-growing environmental problems. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development's Global Plastics Outlook: Policy Scenarios to 2060 report, global plastic ...
Biotechnology
Sep 2, 2026
0
14
Photosynthetic microorganisms can use light energy to convert carbon dioxide into useful compounds under mild, environmentally compatible conditions. However, many current photosynthetic production systems rely on cells growing ...
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 10, 2026
0
11
The performance of many next-generation devices depends on controlling how energy flows at extremely small scales. In the field of microelectronics—where devices continue to shrink and new materials are introduced—small imperfections ...
General Physics
Jul 31, 2026
0
34
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have demonstrated a new way of switching a material between two fundamentally different magnetic states using an electric current. The discovery could pave the way for ...
Condensed Matter
Jul 30, 2026
0
74
Full-color displays normally require separate red, green and blue light emitters. A team from the University of Osaka and Ritsumeikan University has demonstrated another approach: a single light-emitting layer that produces ...
Optics & Photonics
Jul 30, 2026
0
41
A fleeting photoinduced electronic state and the subsequent formation of a photoinduced hidden state in a metal–organic framework were captured in just 30 femtoseconds by researchers at Science Tokyo, Tohoku University and ...
Condensed Matter
Jul 27, 2026
0
10
