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The 2010 Nobel Prize for Chemistry rewards a family of techniques for forging carbon-carbon bonds that have already helped to create new organic materials.
Research on superhydrophobic materials has mostly focused on their extreme non-wettability. However, the implications of superhydrophobicity beyond wetting, in particular for transport phenomena, remain largely unexplored.
John Clarke told Nature Materials about his work on superconducting quantum interference devices — SQUIDs — and his fascination with their applicability to many fields, from medicine to geophysics to quantum information and cosmology.
The high critical temperature and magnetic field in cuprates and Fe-based superconductors are not enough to assure applications at higher temperatures. Making these superconductors useful involves complex and expensive technologies to address many conflicting physics and materials requirements.
Superconductivity has gone from a rare event to a ground state that pops up in materials once considered improbable, if not impossible. Although we cannot predict its occurrence yet, recent discoveries give us some clues about how to look for new — hopefully more useful — superconducting materials.
The critical shortage of rare-earth elements is a concern for a number of important technologies, but also an opportunity to research alternative materials and technologies, says Alexander King, director of the US Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory.
The issues associated with the supply of rare-earth metals are a vivid reminder to all of us that natural resources are limited. Japan's Element Strategy Initiative is a good example of a long-term strategy towards the sustainable use of scarce elements.
Would the publication of anonymous referee reports and editorial decision letters of published papers benefit the scientific debate? Results from a trial seem to suggest this.
