Soft support can make unexpectedly stable glass

Glasses are ubiquitous materials found in building materials, beverage containers, soft electronics, and mobile phone screens. The creation of naturally dense and rigid glass occurs through a process known as aging. It involves ...

Developing strategies for high-quality crystal growth

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) are a class of materials with physical properties that make them ideally suited for use in flexible optoelectronic applications, such as light detectors, light-emitting diodes and ...

Self-cleaning spacecraft surfaces to combat microbes

Astronauts live and work in orbit along with teeming populations of microorganisms, which could present a serious threat to health—and even the structural integrity of spacecraft. To help combat such invisible stowaways, ...

Copying the small structures of Salvinia leaves

Several plants and animals have evolved surfaces with long-term (i.e., days to months) air-retainability to prevent wetting and submersion. One example is Salvinia, a plant floating on water. The secret "how do they maintain ...

Ultra-thin, gas-tight coatings for PET bottles

If polymers are specifically made to form and deposit on the surfaces surrounding the plasma, they can be coated in a targeted manner. Thanks to this so-called plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition, or PECVD for short, ...

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