November 2021: Research led by KIC Graduate Fellow Jenniffer Bustillos has demonstrated a new technique to improve the strength and ductility of 3D printed metal alloys. By deliberately adding more defects during printing and then harnessing the energy of those defects as they were removed with hot isostatic processing, the research team improved the structure of the material. Read more at the Cornell Chronicle.

September 2021: Former KIC postdoc fellow Chenhao Jin has won the 2021 Blavatnik Regional Award for Young Scientists. Jin, now a tenure-track assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was nominated by Cornell University for the award in Physical Sciences and Engineering. The Blavatnik Regional awards “honor outstanding postdoctoral scientists from academic research institutions across New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.” Read more about Chenhao’s achievement in Blavatnik’s announcement.

July 2021:  KIC faculty member Brad Ramshaw and KIC postdoc Gaël Grissonnanche have developed a calculation framework to accurately measure the Planckian Limit. ‘”Before, the ‘Planckian limit’ was just kind of inferred from data using very simple models. We did a very careful measurement and calculation and showed that it really is obeyed right down to the fine details. And we found that it’s isotropic, so it’s the same for electrons traveling in any direction.”‘ The team’s research has been published in Nature. Read more about the achievement on the Cornell Chronicle.

June 2021: A team led by KIC faculty member J.C. Seamus Davis, and which included KIC Fellow Xiaolong Liu, have discovered that Pair Density Wave (PDW) states exist in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD). The discovery provides a rich platform for discovery of new states of quantum matter and for development of new technologies. Read more about the discovery on the Cornell Chronicle.

June 2021: team led by KIC faculty member Kyle Shen has discovered a rare “pseudogap”phenomenon that helps explain how the superconducting transition temperature can be greatly boosted in a single monolayer of iron selenide, and how it might be applied to other superconducting materials. Read more about the discovery in the Cornell Chronicle.

May 2021: A research team led by KIC co-director David Muller has beaten their previous world record for resolution by a factor of two by using an electron microscope pixel array detector (EMPAD) that incorporates even more sophisticated 3D reconstruction algorithms to locate individual atoms in all three dimensions when they might be otherwise hidden using other imaging methods. Read more about the development in the Cornell Chronicle article.

March 2021: A collaboration led by KIC co-director Paul McEuen and KIC faculty member Itai Cohen have created micron-sized shape memory actuators that enable atomically thin two-dimensional materials to fold themselves into 3D configurations. As a demonstration, the team created what is potentially the world’s smallest self-folding origami bird. Read more about the achievement in the Cornell Chronicle.

January 2021:A Cornell collaboration led by KIC Executive Committee member Huili Grace Xing has found a way to grow a single crystalline layer of alpha-aluminum gallium oxide that has the widest energy bandgap to date – a discovery that clears the way for new semiconductors that will handle higher voltages, higher power densities and higher frequencies than previously seen. Read more about the discovery on the Cornell Chronicle.

December 2020: A collaboration led by KIC faculty members Iwijn de Vlaminck, Ilana Brito, and Warren Zipfel has developed an imaging tool to create intricate spatial maps of the locations and identities of hundreds of different microbial species, such as those that make up the gut microbiome. The tool will help scientists understand how complex communities of microorganisms interact with each other and also their environment. Read more about the tool in the Cornell Chronicle.

November 2020: A Cornell-led collaboration by KIC members Jie Shan and Kin Fai Mak has developed a way to stack two-dimensional semiconductors and trap electrons in a repeating pattern that forms a specific and long-hypothesized crystal. Read more about the research on the Cornell Chronicle.

August 2020: A KIC-member led collaboration has created the first microscopic robots that incorporate semiconductor components, allowing them to be controlled – and made to walk – with standard electronic signals. The research team was led by KIC co-director Paul McEuen, member Itai Cohen, and former KIC member Marc Miskin. Read more about the collaboration on the Cornell Chronicle.

August 2020: Cornell researchers, led by KIC member Katja Nowack, used an ultrathin graphene “sandwich” to create a tiny magnetic field sensor that can operate over a greater temperature range than previous sensors, while also detecting miniscule changes in magnetic fields that might otherwise get lost within a larger magnetic background. Read more about the project at the Cornell Chronicle.

July 2020: KIC co-director David Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering, and his research group have developed a new form of ptychography that uses complex algorithms to achieve faster, more efficient imaging with picometer precision that won’t easily damage samples. Read the full story in the Cornell Chronicle.

June 2020: A Cornell team led by KIC members Kin Fai Mak and Jie Shan has developed a new imaging technique that is fast and sensitive enough to observe elusive critical spin fluctuations in two-dimensional magnets. This real-time imaging allows researchers to control the fluctuations and switch magnetism via a “passive” mechanism that could eventually lead to more energy-efficient magnetic storage devices. Read more about the project on the Cornell Chronicle.

April 2020: KIC co-director Paul McEuen, member Al Molnar, have developed microsensors so tiny, they can fit 30,000 on one side of a penny. Equipped with an integrated circuit, solar cells and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that enable them to harness light for power and communication, each device costs a fraction of that same penny. Read more about the project on the Cornell Chronicle.