(Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory; Stanford University; Harvard University; Columbia University; Florida State University; and the University of California, Los Angeles, have discovered new behavior in an 50-nanometer-thick two-dimensional material, which offers a promising approach to manipulating light that will be useful for devices that detect, control or emit light, collectively known as optoelectronic devices. Optoelectronic devices are used in light-emitting diodes (LEDs), optical fibers, and medical imaging. The researchers found that when oriented in a specific direction and subjected to linearly polarized terahertz radiation, an ultrathin film of tungsten ditelluride circularly polarizes the incoming light.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense)
Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a new technique that combines atomic-scale imaging with extremely short laser pulses to detect single-atom defects that manufacturers add to semiconductors to tune their electronic performance. “This is particularly relevant for components with nanoscale structures,” said Tyler Cocker, a scientist who led this study. The technique is straightforward to implement with the right equipment, he added, and his team is already applying it to atomically thin materials, such as graphene nanoribbons.

(Funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation)
Researchers from Purdue University and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have created a process to develop ultrahigh-strength aluminum alloys that are suitable for additive manufacturing. The researchers produced the aluminum alloys by using several transition metals, including cobalt, iron, nickel and titanium. “These intermetallics have crystal structures with low symmetry and are known to be brittle at room temperature,” said Anyu Shang, one of the researchers involved in this study. “But our method forms the transitional metal elements into colonies of nanoscale, intermetallics lamellae that aggregate into fine rosettes. The nanolaminated rosettes can largely suppress the brittle nature of intermetallics.”