Aerogels are often described as 'frozen smoke' because these extremely light materials are composed mostly of air
Researchers characterized four commercial blue pigments with three conservation binders using thermal analysis, ATR-FTIR, SEM-EDS, and microscopy, revealing marked differences in thermal behavior and predominantly non-homogeneous pigment-binder mixtures. Most notably, a commercial manganese blue contained no detectable manganese, while 11 of 12 pigment-binder combinations showed non-uniform behavior, highlighting the value of verifying material composition and compatibility before conservation use.
Rare-earth oxides such as cerium oxide, lanthanum oxide, and yttrium oxide can improve laser-cladded metal coatings by refining grains, purifying the molten pool, strengthening interfaces, and altering solidification behavior. The review finds that these effects can increase hardness, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, and crack resistance, although performance depends strongly on additive concentration, particle size, alloy system, and processing conditions.
Future lunar bases will depend on materials that can withstand radiation, extreme temperatures, vacuum, and abrasive dust while supporting power generation, storage, and transmission at increasingly large scales. The review highlights how radiation-tolerant photovoltaics, regolith-based thermal storage, lunar-derived conductors and other ISRU-compatible materials could reduce launch mass and help enable more resilient lunar energy infrastructure.
A UK startup that has found a novel way to make advanced heat-resistant materials is targeting further expansion in the US with the launch of an office in Silicon Valley.
Researchers developed a liquid metal-semiconductor valve that regulates current direction while remaining functional in flexible circuits stretched to approximately 1000% strain. The system also supports tunable switching, reconfigurable OR and AND logic, and wireless-energy-assisted logic operation under extreme deformation, providing a new approach to adaptive soft electronics.
Researchers used atomic-resolution imaging and simulations to show how twist angle alters halide-ion migration across CsPbBr3–CsPbCl3 perovskite heterostructures by changing the formation of interfacial diffusion channels. A 28° twist delayed interdiffusion, reduced the diffusion-channel ratio by more than 60%, and improved photodetector stability under accelerated thermal testing.
Researchers developed a multi-phase machine-learning framework to rapidly predict electronic band gaps and screen oxide perovskites for potential photovoltaic applications. Starting from more than half a million candidate structures, the approach progressively narrowed the search to a small group of band-gap-compatible compositions that now require higher-level computational and experimental validation.
A new purple cooling fabric developed by Chinese and Australian researchers could help people stay cooler during scorching summer days without having to resort to wearing white.
A computational preprint screened nearly 92 million compositionally complex materials to determine how elemental mixing alters neutron transport in fusion shielding. The study identified two proposed neutronic cocktail effects involving scattering, absorption, and atomic density that could guide lower-cost, more resource-efficient nuclear materials.
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