Silicon, the standard semiconducting material used in a host of applications—computer central processing units (CPUs), semiconductor chips, detectors, and solar cells—is an abundant, naturally occurring material. However, ...
Condensed Matter
Feb 16, 2023
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2381
In a paper released today in Science Advances, Australian researchers describe the first observation of a native ferroelectric metal: a native metal with bistable and electrically switchable spontaneous polarization states—the ...
General Physics
Jul 5, 2019
1
6
(PhysOrg.com) -- The normal structure of metals is crystalline. Glass, on the other hand, is amorphous. But it's possible to make amorphous forms of metal, metallic glasses, which can be remarkably strong, having many properties ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 24, 2009
11
0
If you freeze any liquid fast enough, even liquid metal, it becomes a glass. Vitrified metals, or metallic glasses, are at the frontier of materials science research. They have been made by rapidly cooling alloys of various ...
Condensed Matter
Feb 8, 2016
1
1217
(PhysOrg.com) -- Imagine a material that's stronger than steel, but just as versatile as plastic, able to take on a seemingly endless variety of forms. For decades, materials scientists have been trying to come up with just ...
Materials Science
Mar 1, 2011
18
3
Throw a rock through a window made of silica glass, and the brittle, insulating oxide pane shatters. But whack a golf ball with a club made of metallic glass—a resilient conductor that looks like metal—and the glass not ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 18, 2014
3
0
Researchers at the universities of Chicago and Wisconsin-Madison raise the possibility of designing ultrastable glasses at the molecular level via a vapor-deposition process. Ultrastable glasses could find potential applications ...
Condensed Matter
Jan 6, 2013
0
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a way to make some notoriously brittle materials ductile -- yet stronger than ever -- simply by reducing their size.
Nanomaterials
Feb 9, 2010
2
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- Metallic glasses are emerging as potentially useful materials at the frontier of materials science research. They combine the advantages and avoid many of the problems of normal metals and glasses, two classes ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 16, 2010
2
0
Solar cells, which convert sunlight to electricity, have long been part of the global vision for renewable energy. Although individual cells are very small, when upscaled to modules, they can be used to charge batteries and ...
Nanophysics
Jun 22, 2021
2
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