Materials science and the sensor revolution

For the past decade, we have been investigating strategies to develop ways to provide chemical sensing platforms capable of long-term deployment in remote locations1-3. This key objective has been driven by the emergence of ubiquitous digital communications and the associated potential for widely deployed wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Understandably, in these early days of WSNs, deployments have been based on very reliable sensors, such as thermistors, accelerometers, flow meters, photodetectors, and digital cameras. Biosensors and chemical sensors (bio/chemo-sensors) are largely missing from this rapidly developing field, despite the obvious value offered by an ability to measure molecular targets at multiple locations in real-time. Interestingly, while this paper is focused on the issues with respect to wide area sensing of the environment, the core challenge is essentially the same for long-term implantable bio/chemo-sensors4, i.e.; how to maintain the integrity of the analytical method at a remote, inaccessible location

Materials science: Breaking the neural code

The precise information that is conveyed between nerve cells remains unknown. Networks of nerve cells grown on silicon chips, using a polyester as a guide, may bring us closer to translating the elusive neural language

Graphene: from materials science to particle physics

Since its discovery in 2004, graphene, a two-dimensional hexagonal carbon allotrope, has generated great interest and spurred research activity from materials science to particle physics and vice versa. In particular, graphene has been found to exhibit outstanding electronic and mechanical properties, as well as an unusual low-energy spectrum of Dirac quasiparticles giving rise to a fractional quantum Hall effect when freely suspended and immersed in a magnetic field. One of the most intriguing puzzles of graphene involves the low-temperature conductivity at zero density, a central issue in the design of graphene-based nanoelectronic components. While suspended graphene experiments have shown a trend reminiscent of semiconductors, with rising resistivity at low temperatures, most theories predict a constant or even decreasing resistivity. However, lattice field theory calculations have revealed that suspended graphene is at or near the critical coupling for excitonic gap formation due to strong Coulomb interactions, which suggests a simple and straightforward explanation for the experimental data. In this contribution we review the current status of the field with emphasis on the issue of gap formation, and outline recent progress and future points of contact between condensed matter physics and Lattice QCD.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Plenary talk given at the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2010), June 14-19, 2010, Villasimius, Sardinia, Ital

Science SLDM autumn 2009 - Resources

Collection of resource materials from the autumn 2009 secondary science subject leader development meeting (SLDM) that are designed to provide support and challenge for science departments in the implementation of Assessing Pupils' Progress (APP) and How science works (HSW). These materials are designed for subject leaders to use with departments and teachers

Science subject leader development materials: Spring 2010

These are the materials from the spring 2010 science subject leader development meetings (SLDM). They provide support and challenge for science departments within the 'Narrowing the Gaps' agenda by focusing on strengthening science learning and teaching. Comprises tutor notes, slide presentation, slide handouts and activity handouts

propnet: A Knowledge Graph for Materials Science

Discovering the ideal material for a new application involves determining its numerous properties, such as electronic, mechanical, or thermodynamic, to match those of its desired application. The rise of high-throughput computation has meant that large databases of material properties are now accessible to scientists. However, these databases contain far more information than might appear at first glance, since many relationships exist in the materials science literature to derive, or at least approximate, additional properties. propnet is a new computational framework designed to help scientists to automatically calculate additional information from their datasets. It does this by constructing a network graph of relationships between different materials properties and traversing this graph. Initially, propnet contains a catalog of over 100 property relationships but the hope is for this to expand significantly in the future, and contributions from the community are welcomed

Materials science at Swiss universities of applied sciences

Copyright ©Swiss Chemical Society: CHIMIA, Volume 73, Numbers 7-8, August 2019, pp. 645-655(11)In the Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences, several research institutes are involved in Materials Science, with different approaches and applications fields. A few examples of recent projects from different groups of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW) are given