University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Research - Highlights, 2006 and earlier

2006

Science: 3D heterogeneous systems are a key to the next generation of electronics
FS-MRL PIs Ralph Nuzzo (Chemistry) and John Rogers (MatSE) were feaured in the December 15, 2006 issue of Science magazine describing their fabrication and operation of electronics combining disparate types of semiconductor devices.

Science: Complex order parameter in ruthenate superconductors confirmed
FS-MRL PI Dale Van Harlingen (Physics) along with graduate students and a collaborator from Kyoto University published an article in the November 24th issue of Science confirming the pairing symmetry of strontium ruthenium oxide.

Martinez elected among 2006 AAAS Fellows
FS-MRL PI Todd Martinez (Chemistry) was among 10 faculty members elected to the 2006 class of AAAS Fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, publisher of the journal Science and the world's largest general scientific society.

Hattar image chosen as Materials Today 2006 Cover Competition winner
Ph.D. student Khalid Hattar's TEM image has been selected as the 2006 Cover Competition winner for the journal Materials Today.

Nuzzo and Rogers Plasmonic Crystal work published in PNAS, featured at Nature Nanotechnology
FS-MRL PIs Ralph Nuzzo (Chemistry) and John Rogers (MatSE) along with their groups and collaborators at Argonne National Laboratory were recently published in PNAS then featured on the website for new journal Nature Nanotechnology for their work on quasi-3D plasmonic crystals.

Suslick Breaks Sugar with Sound to get Light
As reported in the November 9th issue of Nature, FS-MRL PI & Cluster Leader Ken Suslick (Chemistry) along with graduate student Nathan Eddingsaas have used high-intensity ultrasound in liquid slurries of sugar and other organic crystals to create mechanoluminescence up to 1000 times more intense than from grinding.

Chiang group work on Quantum Coherence featured in Science
Tai Chiang's (Physics) group was featured in the November 3 issue of Science for their work with atomically uniform silver films, demonstrating that quantum coherence is possible in noncommensurate electronic systems.

New Theory Explains Enhanced Superconductivity in Nanowires
FSMRL PI's Alexey Bezryadin (Physics) and Paul Goldbart (Physics) have discovered an unusual phenomenon and explanative theory for enhanced superconductivity exhibited by ultra-narrow wires exposed to strong magnetic fields.

Semprius Inc. wins a WSJ Technology Innovation Award
Semprius Inc. has won a 2006 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award in the Semiconductors category for a process for making large-scale, high-performance electronic circuits that can be applied to any surface.

Ultrafast Lasers in Materials Research
FSMRL PI David Cahill (MatSE) served as a Guest Editor for the August 2006 issue of MRS Bulletin and co-authored the title theme article.

Self-Avoiding Flexible Polymers under Spherical Confinement
The May 2006 issue of Nano Letters features the work of Erik Luijten (MatSE) and post-doc Angelo Cacciuto on polymers under confinement.

L. Greene & D. Ceperley elected to National Academy of Science
Professors Laura Greene (Physics) & David Ceperley (Physics) were elected to the NAS in April 2006.

Stretchable Silicon Recognized Among Top 10 Emerging Technologies
One of the technologies chosen for this year's MIT Technology Review 'top 10 emerging technologies' is John Rogers' (MatSE) work on stretchable silicon.

Salamon featured in Nature article
Researchers at Illinois and Los Alamos National Laboratory studying the material CeRhIn5 have demonstrated that its magnetic state can coexist with another state- superconductivity- in a certain range of temperature and pressure.

Lewis featured on cover of Soft Matter
Work by Professor Jennifer Lewis's (MatSE) group is featured on the cover of the March 7th, 2006 issue of Soft Matter.

Controlling the Thermal Stability of Thin Films by Interfacial Engineering
A comparison of Pb films prepared on Si(111) surfaces terminated by various metals (interfactants) demonstrates that the phase of the thickness-dependent film thermal stability oscillations can be controlled through interfacial engineering. While films made of an odd number of atomic layers are more stable than even ones in the Pb/In/Si(111) system, this trend is reversed when Au and Pb serve as interfactants. This behavior arises from the different phase shifts experienced by the confined Pb electrons at the substrate interface.

2005

Stretchable silicon could be next wave in electronics
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a fully stretchable form of single-crystal silicon with micron-sized, wave-like geometries that can be used to build high-performance electronic devices on rubber substrates.

Martinez named MacArthur Fellow
Prof. Todd Martinez (Chemistry) has been named a 2005 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Dislocation-driven Nanoscale Surface pattern Formation: Atomic Volcanoes and Whirl Pools in Crystals
Progress in nanoscience and technology depends on the ability to systematically organize, manipulate, and characterize matter at the nanoscale, which can only be achieved through "bottom-up" processes, i.e. by self-organized assembly of atoms and molecules.

Nuzzo elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Prof. Ralph G. Nuzzo (Chemistry) is one of two professors at UIUC elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005.

Polyelectrolyte Inks for Direct Writing of 3-D Microperiodic Structures
Direct-write assembly of 3D microwebs comprised of charged polyelectrolyte filaments has been demonstrated using fluid inks that readily flow through fine deposition nozzles (~ 1 μm diameter or less), and then rapidly solidify in a coagulation reservoir.

Nanoparticle Mediated Colloidal Epitaxy Yields Crack-free Colloidal Crystals
We have performed a fundamental study of the epitaxial assembly of crack-free 3-D colloidal crystals containing very low vacancy concentrations from binary mixtures of colloidal microspheres and highly charged nanoparticles into patterned substrates created by focused ion beam milling.

Coherent X-ray Diffraction from Cubic Silver Single Nanocrystals
The use of microfocus techniques has allowed us to extend synchrotron x-ray-based nanocrystal imaging work to significantly smaller length scales.

2004

Imaging Single, Individual Macromolecules
A new imaging technique that uses electron diffraction waves to improve both image resolution and sensitivity to small structures has been developed. The technique works on the same principle as X-ray diffraction, but uses a laser-like collimated and coherent electron beam of a few tens of nanometers in diameter.

Discovery of Hidden Order in High-Tc Superconductors
The experimental findings imply that the two types of electron organization, coherent motion and spatial organization, are in competition in the copper oxides.

Crystallographic Control in Biomineralized Inorganic Nanostructures
Imprinting structural features of biological molecules on inorganic crystals using biomineralization.

Cluster Simulation Algorithm for Complex Fluids
Development of the geometric cluster algorithm, a highly efficient Monte Carlo method to simulate the behavior of colloids.