News

Though we may not always realize it, photodetectors contribute greatly to the convenience of modern life. Also known as photosensors, photodetectors convert light energy into electrical signals to complete tasks such as opening automatic sliding doors and automatically adjusting a cell phone’s screen brightness in different lighting conditions.

A pair of Penn State materials experts have been selected to present lectures at the American Ceramic Society’s (ACerS) Annual Meeting with Materials Science & Technology to be held virtually Nov. 2-6.

Jon-Paul Maria, professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State, has been elected a fellow of the American Ceramic Society (ACerS). Maria is among the 23 members who will be inducted at the 22nd ACerS Annual Meeting, which will be held virtually on Oct. 5 at the Materials Science and Technology Conference.

The 2020 David Ford McFarland Award for Achievement in Metallurgy lecture will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, via Zoom. William Woodford, co-founder and chief technology officer of Form Energy, will deliver the lecture “The Critical Role of Materials in Global Decarbonization” and receive the 2020 McFarland Award.

Penn State and the University of Freiburg will showcase their close collaboration in the field of living materials during the upcoming Materials Day on Nov. 10-11. Materials Day is an annual event organized by the Materials Research Institute to highlight materials-related interdisciplinary science and engineering research at Penn State. 

The 2020 Richard E. Tressler Lecture in Materials will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, via Zoom. Melissa Hockstad, president and CEO of the American Cleaning Institute (ACI), will deliver the lecture “Materials for Success: Bringing Together the Elements for a Successful Career” and receive the 2020 R.E. Tressler Award.

The Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL) announced that it has accepted calcium phosphosilicate hydrate nanoparticles, or NanoJackets (NJs), which are a new material system invented in the Jim Adair Penn State Lab for diagnostic and drug delivery to human cancer into its Assay Cascade characterization and testing program.

The NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium (PSGC) is currently accepting applications to its undergraduate research internship programs. The programs offer first-year and minority students a two-semester, faculty-mentored internship in a research laboratory at University Park. The deadline to apply is Nov. 1.

Zi-Kui Liu, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the Phases Research Laboratory, has been named the inaugural Dorothy Pate Enright Professor.

The power of the sun, wind and sea may soon combine to produce clean-burning hydrogen fuel, according to a team of Penn State researchers. The team integrated water purification technology into a new proof-of-concept design for a sea water electrolyzer, which uses an electric current to split apart the hydrogen and oxygen in water molecules.