research

Perhaps some of those on this site have seen the news article on the BBC website yesterday about cracks appearing in the reactor at the Hunterston B nuclear power station. As the article states, cracking in the graphite bricks is predicted and the regulators are happy that the reactor is safe to operate.

Cephalopod-inspired Design of Electro-mechano-chemically Responsive Elastomers for On-demand Fluorescent Patterning

Qiming Wang, Gregory R. Gossweiler, Stephen L. Craig*, Xuanhe Zhao*

Recent experiments reveal that a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) probe tip can generate a highly localized strain field in a graphene drumhead, which in turn leads to pseudomagnetic fields in the graphene that can spatially confine graphene charge carriers in a way similar to a lithographically defined quantum dot (QD). While these experimental findings are intriguing, their further implementation in nanoelectronic devices hinges upon the knowledge of key underpinning parameters, which still remain elusive.

Silicon is a promising anode material for lithium-ion batteries due to its enormous theoretical energy density. Fracture during electrochemical cycling has limited the practical viability of silicon electrodes, but recent studies indicate that fracture can be prevented by taking advantage of lithiation-induced plasticity. In this paper, we provide experimental insight into the nature of plasticity in amorphous Li_xSi thin films. To do so, we vary the rate of lithiation of amorphous silicon thin films and simultaneously measure stresses.