Structural properties as a research area focuses on the characterization, quantification, and modeling of how the arrangement and connectivity of components within a system determine its behavior and performance. This includes investigating geometric, topological, and symmetry-related attributes in materials, molecules, biological assemblies, or engineered structures, and relating these features to mechanical, electronic, optical, or functional responses. Research typically integrates experimental probing (e.g., diffraction, microscopy, spectroscopy) with theoretical and computational methods (e.g., continuum mechanics, graph theory, atomistic simulations) to establish structure–property relationships that enable prediction, optimization, and rational design of systems with targeted structural performance.
A team of Johns Hopkins researchers is using an innovative X-ray imaging approach to reveal how compression reshapes the tiny spaces and stresses within sandstone—findings that could predict how this common rock used for ...
Earth Sciences
Aug 21, 2025
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Scientists at the University of California San Diego have uncovered how diamond—the material used to encase fuel for fusion experiments at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—can ...
Plasma Physics
Aug 20, 2025
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Water still has unknown sides. When water is forced into two dimensions by enclosing it in appropriate materials, new properties, phase transitions, and structures emerge. MXenes as a class of materials offer a unique platform ...
Nanophysics
Aug 18, 2025
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A new study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with international institutions, has uncovered a key mechanism in how DNA behaves as it passes through nanoscale pores—a process central to ...
Bio & Medicine
Aug 14, 2025
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21
Researchers with the schools of science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) are exploring new ways to manipulate matter with light to unlock a new generation of computer chips, photovoltaic cells and ...
Nanophysics
Aug 12, 2025
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Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research have upended assumptions about how water behaves when squeezed into atom-scale spaces. By applying spectroscopic tools together with the machine learning simulation ...
Nanophysics
Aug 8, 2025
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Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital used structural biology approaches to gain insight into how sweet taste receptors detect sweeteners.
Cell & Microbiology
Aug 4, 2025
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Caltech scientists have developed a method to create metallic objects of a precisely specified shape and composition, giving them unprecedented control of the metallic mixtures, or alloys, they create and the enhanced properties ...
Nanomaterials
Aug 1, 2025
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118
What if a complex material could reshape itself in response to a simple chemical signal? A team of physicists from the University of Vienna and the University of Edinburgh has shown that even small changes in pH value and ...
Soft Matter
Jul 31, 2025
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A new collection of chemically diverse dome-celled ultralight aerogels with high porosity and very low density feature elasticity and mechanical properties that remain intact even under extreme temperatures from 4.2 kelvin ...
