Celebrate the Penn Engineering Undergraduate Class of 2022. Additional information, including speakers and live-stream access is available here.
Abstract: Polymer-infiltrated nanoparticle films (PINFs) are a new class of polymer nanocomposites that overcome many of the challenges in manufacturing highly loaded nanocomposite films (PNCFs). PINFs have a wide range of applications as functional coatings and membranes and have excellent mechanical properties, including high stiffness, hardness, scratch and wear resistance. Fracture toughness is another critical […]
Lithium metal battery systems (LMBs) are being sought as an ultimate replacement to LIBs, potentially increasing the cell energy by over fifty percent due to the high capacity and low voltage of the metal anode. Analogous improvement in energy is possible with sodium metal batteries (NMBs) and with potassium metal batteries (KMBs), where existing ion […]
The ever-growing world population demands material consumption and drives material discovery. The progress of modern society accompanies the advent of advanced materials to enable new performance and functionalities, as epitomized by the invention of two most representative man-made materials: steels (4000 years ago) and petroleum-derived plastics (~80 years ago). The widespread use of steels (and […]
Fibrosis and remodeling of extracellular matrix are involved in many diseases, such as tumors, wound healing, and chronic inflammation. During fibrosis, tissues undergo changes in their viscoelastic properties, i.e., how they resist deformation like a solid and dissipate stress over time like a fluid. My research program determines the impact of viscoelasticity on inflammation in […]
For functional materials that are in a nascent stage, such as the antiferromagnetic spintronics, quantum information storage, and new semiconducting compounds, it is not clear what will be the high-performance materials of tomorrow. There is a pressing need to examine the complex properties of these emerging materials, and growing single crystals is a crucial step […]
Refreshments served at 10:15 AM In this talk, I will describe theoretical and computational strategies based on quantum mechanical calculations, aimed at predicting material properties suitable for the development of quantum technologies. Specifically, I will discuss the electronic structure and coherent states of spin defects in two- and three-dimensional semiconductors and insulators, obtained using both classical […]
"Utilizing Quantum Geometry and Topology for Enabling Integrated Chiral Photonics" Classical and quantum computing devices need to ferry vast amounts of data, and optical interconnects provide a promising approach allowing faster speeds and larger bandwidths. Critical interconnect components are light sources, waveguides and detectors. Currently, the information is encoded in intensity and frequency but other […]
In response to the grave and escalating threat of climate change, the US Department of Energy has announced a series of ambitious Energy Earth Shot Initiatives. These target an 80% reduction in the cost of clean hydrogen by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The first of the initiatives focuses on establishing a green […]
If you are finishing your PhD or your postdoctoral tenure you may be asking yourself, What’s next? Should I pursue an academic career, as my thesis adviser or postdoctoral supervisor has done? Or should I look elsewhere, perhaps at industry, or government? These are great questions that most of us have asked ourselves at the […]
