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.
Materials that are both strong and lightweight could improve everything from cars to body armor. But usually, the two qualities are mutually exclusive. Now, University of Connecticut researchers and colleagues have developed ...
Nanophysics
Jul 25, 2023
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Microscopic materials made of clay, designed by researchers at the University of Missouri, could be key to the future of synthetic materials chemistry. By enabling scientists to produce chemical layers tailor-made to deliver ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 24, 2023
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Scientists from Chinese Academy of Sciences Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, National Physical Laboratory (U.K.), The University of Manchester (U.K.) and National University of Singapore have developed ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 13, 2023
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When Ange Nzihou, an expert in converting society's waste into valuable products, visited Princeton in 2022, he brought with him a technique to transform waste biomass into graphene, a material with many uses from batteries ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 13, 2023
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An elastic material that changes color, conducts electricity, can be 3D printed and is also biodegradable? That is not just scientific wishful thinking: Empa researchers from the Cellulose & Wood Materials laboratory in Dübendorf ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 5, 2023
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310
Nanometer-scale coatings with functional materials play an important role in many sensory, electronic and photonic applications. An international team of researchers, coordinated by Leibniz IPHT in Jena, Germany, has succeeded ...
Nanomaterials
Jul 4, 2023
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With a flick of a switch, current technologies allow you to quickly change materials from being dark to light, or cold to hot, just by blocking or transmitting specific wavelengths. But now, inspired by squid skin, researchers ...
Nanomaterials
Jun 28, 2023
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Using nanomagnets composites and conductive yarn, scientists have invented a smart textile that can sense and measure body movements—from muscles flexing to veins pulsing. The device, presented on June 27 in the journal Matter, ...
Bio & Medicine
Jun 27, 2023
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A team of chemists and material scientists at the University of Tokyo has developed a new class of interlocking supramolecular systems by combining metal-organic frameworks with rotaxanes. In their study, reported in the ...
The prospect of a cure for a type of epilepsy could be one step closer following breakthrough research on materials that may help new types of probes be safely implanted in the brain.
Bio & Medicine
Jun 12, 2023
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