Category Archives: News

April, 2019: KIC Director Paul McEuen, KIC member Itai Cohen, and former KIC Postdoctoral fellow Mark Miskin were featured in the New York Times on April 30, 2019 for their ground-breaking (and KIC-funded) microbot research.  Read the full story here.

April 2019: Exotic behaviors emerge in atoms when cooled to near absolute zero, a temperature so cold that atoms cease their jittery movement. By bringing the isotope helium-3 to the brink of that threshold and confining it to a tiny space, KIC member Jeevak Parpia discovered that a surprising polka dot pattern spontaneously appeared in the […]

April 2019: As a genetic material, DNA is responsible for all known life. But DNA is also a polymer. Tapping into the unique nature of the molecule, KIC members Dan Luo and Shogo Hamada have created simple machines constructed of biomaterials with properties of living things. Read more in the Cornell Chronicle.

March, 2019: Assistant Professor of Physics and KIC member Brad Ramshaw has been named as a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship. This award supports early-career faculty members’ original research and broad-based education related to science, technology, and economic performance.  Read more about Ramshaw’s research focus and the potential impact of this fellowship […]

March, 2019: Former KIC Postdoc Marc Miskin, now Associate Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at UPenn, presented his ground breaking work on cell-sized micro robots at the APS meeting in Boston March 4-8. The nanofabrication techniques were developed at Cornell with his colleagues (and KIC members), professors Itai Cohen and Paul McEuen. Read more […]

Feb 2019: A nano-sized guitar string vibrates and crackles in an unexpectedly organized and intricate way, according to KIC Director Paul McEuen, whose research group devised a way to listen to a nanoscale guitar for the first time – and then played the Cornell alma mater on it. Their work was published in Nature Jan. 21. Read more […]

October, 2018: Héctor Abruña, KIC executive committee member and the Emile M. Chamot Professor of Chemistry, was named the recipient of the Allen J. Bard Medal for 2019, one of the highest honors of the Electrochemical Society.  Full story can be found in the Cornell Chronicle.

October, 2018: KIC Members Jin Suntivich & Darrell Schlom change electrochemical properties by “shuffling” the top layer of a well-known catalyst. The ability to tailor the catalyst at the atomic scale could open up a whole new way of thinking about catalyst design, Suntivich says. Read more in the Cornell Chronicle.

August, 2018: Lena Kourkoutis, KIC member and Assistant Professor of Applied and Engineering Physics, has developed and demonstrated a technique for direct visualization of solid-liquid interfaces in an effort to better understand a major problem with Li-metal batteries: dendrite growth on the anode, which can cause short-circuiting and, in extreme cases, catastrophic battery failure. Read more […]

July, 2018: Guinness World Records has officially recognized KIC members David Muller and Sol Gruner for their world record for highest electron microscope resolution. Read more in the Cornell Chronicle  and The Guinness World Records site.

July, 2018: KIC member Hector Abruna to lead the recently funded DOE Center for Alkaline-Based Energy Solutions (CABES), part of the Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC). CABES, dedicated to the development of advanced fuel cell technologies in alkaline media, has been awarded a four-year, $10.75M grant from the DOE office of Science.  Read more in […]

July, 2018: KIC co-Director David Muller, KIC member Sol Gruner and Physics Professor Veit Elser, have developed a method for achieving ultra-high resolution for their electron microscope, using monolayer molybdenum disulfide to achieve a world record for image resolution. The Cornell-developed electron microscope pixel array detector employed in this method was developed with support from […]

June 2018: In a paper published in Nature, a team led by KIC member Uli Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, reports discovery of 10-nanometer, individual, self-assembled dodecahedral structures – 12-sided silica cages that could have applications in mesoscale material assembly, as well as medical diagnosis and […]

May 2018: KIC members Jie Shan and Kin Fai Mak are experts on atomically thin materials, particularly their optical and electronic properties. They are also married and were recruited to Cornell last year through the provost’s NEXT Nano Initiative. They moved their shared lab and joint research group to Ithaca and have been up and […]

May, 2018:  KIC congratulates Executive Committee member Hector Abruna on being elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Abruna is one of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates elected to NAS in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.  This story originally appeared in the Cornell Chronicle.