It was an unusual scene on an overcast day in July 2022 at the University Park West Campus intramural fields. Near quiet tennis courts, a group of around 100 first-year college students, high school students, graduate students from several universities, faculty and administrators, and military visitors gathered around several display tables, including one dishing out Berkey Creamery ice cream. Nearby, a somewhat ominous, mysterious large black drone hovered with a distinct high-pitched buzz.
Just about a year into her Penn State experience, second-year geosciences student Grace Druschel felt she already was making strides toward her research goals. Better yet, she was working on something she believes has extreme societal importance.
Perovskites, a family of materials with unique electric properties, show promise for use in a variety fields, including next-generation solar cells. A Penn State-led team of scientists created a new process to fabricate large perovskite devices that is more cost- and time-effective than previously possible and that they said may accelerate future materials discovery.
A new form of a heterostructure of layered two-dimensional (2D) materials may enable quantum computing to overcome key barriers to its widespread application, according to an international team of researchers.
The coming decades present a host of challenges for our built environments: a rising global population combined with increasing urbanization; crumbling infrastructure and dwindling resources to rebuild it; and the growing pressures of a changing climate, to name a few.
The 15th annual Materials Visualization Competition (MVC15) is now accepting submissions. The deadline for submissions is March 15.
The event is an annual scientific and artistic visual competition sponsored by the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Research Institute at Penn State.
Advances in computing power over the decades have come thanks in part to our ability to make smaller and smaller transistors, a building block of electronic devices, but we are nearing the limit of the silicon materials typically used. A new technique for creating 2D oxide materials may pave the way for future high-speed electronics, according to an international team of scientists.
Six new Penn State faculty members have joined the Institutes of Energy and the Environment (IEE). The researchers represent four Penn State colleges: the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences; the College of Engineering; the College of Health and Human Development; and the College of Medicine.
The researchers in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences are Ida Djenontin, Nutifafa Yao Doumon and Stephanie Law.
Soft, elastic semiconductors and circuits could advance wearable medical devices and other emerging technologies, but the high-performance electronics are difficult and expensive to manufacture. A Penn State-led research team plans to make the process easier and cheaper with a new manufacturing method.
A team of researchers at Penn State is investigating how contaminants in power plant water cycles affect the integrity of steel pipes and tubing in power generation systems.