Tech Briefs Magazine - June 2022 - 53

FACILITY FOCUS
on finding new materials for
electronics, computers, information
storage and energy harvesting
and conversion.
Another research team is trying
to understand the relationship
between a disordered material's
individual particle
arrangement and how it reacts
to external stressors. Their
study found that these materials
have " memory " that can be
used to predict how and when
they will flow.
A suspension of particles of different sizes during shearing experiments conducted in the lab of Paulo Arratia,
with arrows indicating particle " flow " and trajectories. In a new study published in Nature Physics, researchers
detail the relationship between a disordered material's individual particle arrangement and how it reacts
to external stressors. (Image: Arratia lab)
Vivodyne, launched in 2021, has created a platform that allows
fully automated, complex studies at a far larger scale and
lower cost than would be possible with manual experimentation,
so pharmaceutical companies can actually test lab-made
organs instead of animals in their drug-development processes.
Materials and Photonics
Research
A major research challenge in the field
of nanotechnology is finding efficient
ways to control light, an ability essential
for high-resolution imaging, biosensors,
and cell phones. Because light is an electromagnetic
wave that carries no charge
itself, it is difficult to manipulate with
voltage or an external magnetic field. To
solve this challenge, engineers have
found indirect ways to manipulate light
using properties of the materials from
which light reflects. However, the challenge
becomes even more difficult on the
nanoscale, as materials behave differently
in atomically thin states.
A research team at Penn Engineering
has discovered a magnetic property in antiferromagnetic
materials that allows for
the manipulation of light on the nanoscale,
and simultaneously links the
semiconductor material to magnetism, a
gap that scientists have been trying to
bridge for decades. The research focuses
Tech Briefs, June 2022
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A disordered material is randomly
arranged at the particle-scale,
e.g., atoms or grains,
instead of being systematically
distributed. Researchers in the
Arratia lab are studying this class
of materials as part of Penn's Materials
Research Science & Engineering
Center, where one of the
program's focuses is on understanding
the organization and
proliferation of particle-scale rearrangements in disordered,
amorphous materials.
Penn Engineering has opened the door for a new class of
polymers that can improve nanopatterning. The microscopic
components that make up computer chips must be made at
A
The researchers developed a way of alternating between " blocks " of two types of polymer with
precise lengths. These " multiblock copolymers " spontaneously form layered and cylindrical structures
(left), which could be used for nanopatterning, a way of manufacturing microscopic components.
The researchers also demonstrated a " double gyroid " structure (right), which could be used
for more complicated nanopatterning templates. (Image: Penn Engineering)
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Tech Briefs Magazine - June 2022

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