Research | Penn State Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Zen-Hao Lai and Zhengxiao Yu are two co-authors on a recent research project that uses AI to convert existing text-based research data into highly detailed equations.

Artificial intelligence-powered large language models (LLM) need to be trained on massive datasets to make accurate predictions — but what if researchers don't have enough of the right type of data?

The Huck Institute of the Life Sciences at Penn State University Park.

The Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Penn State has selected eight research teams that span 12 departments across six colleges to receive 2025-26 seed grant funding.

An atom as seen in a field ion microscope.

Seventy years ago, in Osmond Laboratory on Penn State’s University Park campus, Erwin W. Müller, Evan Pugh Research Professor of Physics, became the first person to “see” an atom. In doing so, Müller cemented his legacy, not only at Penn State, but also as a pioneer in the world of physics and beyond.

Josh Stapleton, director of the Materials Characterization Lab (MCL) at Penn State, will deliver a talk titled “The Penn State Materials Characterization Lab” as part of the Penn State Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s 590 Seminar series. The event will be held at from 3:05 to 4:20 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 4, in 112 Kern Building at Penn State University Park.

Superconductors enable electrons to flow through without any resistance, like a superhighway, enabling more efficient energy and advanced electronic devices.

Electricity flows through wires to deliver power, but it loses energy as it moves, delivering less than it started with. But that energy loss isn’t a given. Scientists at Penn State have found a new way to identify types of materials known as superconductors that allow power to travel without any resistance, meaning no energy is lost.

Via a technique known as electrospinning, researchers at Penn State weave new possibilities for health sensors that can be part of clothing made with nanofiber materials that generate electricity from the wearer’s motion to power them.

Could clothing monitor a person’s health in real time, because the clothing itself is a self-powered sensor? A new material created through electrospinning, which is a process that draws out fibers using electricity, brings this possibility one step closer.

The research team, from left to right: Jon-Paul Maria, Susan Trolier-McKinstry, Mingyo "Leen" Park and Morteza Kayyalha

The next generation of high-performance sensors for detecting force that can perform under extreme conditions may soon be a reality thanks to a new project underway at Penn State.

detecting a biomarker implicated in endometriosis

Almost 200 million people, including children, around the world have endometriosis, a chronic disease in which the lining of the uterus grows outside of the uterus. More severe symptoms, such as extreme pain and potentially infertility, can often be mitigated with early identification and treatment, but no single point-of-care diagnostic test for the disease exists despite the ease of access to the tissue directly implicated.

$A researcher handles a sample in the X-ray diffraction lab in the Materials Characterization Lab.$

When optical networking company Infinera was acquired by telecommunications giant Nokia in early 2025, it was hailed as a strategic move that would solidify Nokia’s leadership in data transport technology. But behind this $2.3 billion deal lies a story of innovation that’s been quietly unfolding in central Pennsylvania, thanks to a long-standing partnership between Infinera and Penn State’s Materials Research Institute (MRI).

This conceptual illustration of a computer based on 2D molecules displays an actual scanning electron microscope image of the computer fabricated by a team by researchers at Penn State.

Silicon is king in the semiconductor technology that underpins smartphones, computers, electric vehicles and more, but its crown may be slipping, according to a team led by researchers at Penn State. In a world first, they used two-dimensional (2D) materials, which are only an atom thick and retain their properties at that scale, unlike silicon, to develop a computer capable of simple operations.