New approaches to biomaterials design

The adoption of combinatorial and computational methods in biomaterials design is a highway towards the discovery and realization of tailored polymeric materials to satisfy the specific requirements of many diverse biomedical or prosthetic applications.     

A mortar formulation for frictionless line-to-line beam contact

Multibody System Dynamics - This paper describes the quasi-static formulation of frictionless line contact between flexible beams by employing the mortar finite element approach. Contact...     

Correlating Nanocrystalline Structure with Electronic Properties in 2D Platinum Diselenide

Platinum diselenide (PtSe₂) is a 2D material with outstanding electronic and piezoresistive properties. The material can be grown at low temperatures in a scalable manner, which makes it extremely appealing for many potential electronics, photonics, and sensing applications. Here, the nanocrystalline structure of different PtSe₂ thin films grown by thermally assisted conversion (TAC) is investigated and is correlated with their electronic and piezoresistive properties. Scanning transmission electron microscopy for structural analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) for chemical analysis, and Raman spectroscopy for phase identification are used. Electronic devices are fabricated using transferred PtSe₂ films for electrical characterization and piezoresistive gauge factor measurements. The variations of crystallite size and their orientations are found to have a strong correlation with the electronic and piezoresistive properties of the films, especially the sheet resistivity and the effective charge carrier mobility. The findings may pave the way for tuning and optimizing the properties of TAC-grown PtSe₂ toward numerous applications.     

To be nano or not to be nano?

Nanomaterials, nanostructures, nanostructured materials, nanoimprint, nanobiotechnology, nanophysics, nanochemistry, radical nanotechnology, nanosciences, nanooptics, nanoelectronics, nanorobotics, nanosoldiers, nanomedecine, nanoeconomy, nanobusiness, nanolawyer, nanoethics to name a few of the nanos. We need a clear definition of all these burgeoning fields for the sake of the grant attribution, for the sake of research program definition, and to avoid everyone being lost in so many nanos.