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.

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.

July, 2018: Guinness World Records has officially recognized KIC members David Muller and Sol Gruner for their world record for highest electron microscope resolution.

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 the Kavli Institute at Cornell (KIC).

July, 2018: KIC member Héctor Abruña 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.

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 therapeutics.

May 31, 2018: The 2018 Kavli Prize Laureates were announced as part of a live webcast event. The 2018 Kavli Prize laureate announcements by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo, Norway included live coverage of a special Prize program from the World Science Festival in New York City, anda special keynote address by the Honorable Shirley Ann Jackson Ph.D., President, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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 running in the Physical Sciences Building since January, where they also manage the KIC facility.

May, 2018:  KIC congratulates Executive Committee member Héctor Abruña on being elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Abruña is one of 84 new members and 21 foreign associates elected to NAS in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

April, 2018: KIC members Jie Shan and Kin Fai Mak have become the first to control atomically thin magnets with an electric field, a breakthrough that provides a blueprint for producing exceptionally powerful and efficient data storage in computer chips, among other applications. The research is detailed in the paper, "Electric-field switching of two-dimensional van der Waals magnets," published March 12 in Nature Materials.