Related papers: Freezing as a path to build complex composites

In most applications of nanoporous materials the pore structure is as important as the chemical composition as a determinant of performance. For example, one can alter performance in applications like carbon capture or methane storage by…

We investigate the damping enhancement in a class of biomimetic staggered composites via a combination of design, modeling, and experiment. In total, three kinds of staggered composites are designed by mimicking the structure of bone and…

Soft materials capable of large inelastic deformation play an essential role in high-performance nacre-inspired architectured materials with a combination of stiffness, strength and toughness. The rigid "building blocks" made from glass or…

Ice-templating, also referred to as freeze-casting, is a process exploiting unidirectional crystallization of ice to structure macroporous materials from colloidal solutions. Commonly applied to inorganic and polymeric materials, we employ…

Inspired by the cellular design of plant tissue, we present a new approach to make versatile, tough, highly water-swelling composites. We embed highly swelling hydrogel particles inside tough, water-permeable, elastomeric matrices. The…

DNA nanostructures with programmable shape and interactions can be used as building blocks for the self-assembly of crystalline materials with prescribed nanoscale features, holding a vast technological potential. Structural rigidity and…

The increasing demand for bone grafts due to the aging population has opened new opportunities for the manufacture of porous ceramics to assist in bone reconstruction. In our study, we investigate a new, promising method to manufacture…

In recent years, many new materials have been developed and prepared to improve the performance of light-harvesting technologies and to develop new and attractive applications. The problem of stability of long-term operation of various…

Nature hosts a wealth of materials showcasing intricate structures intertwining order, disorder, and hierarchy, delivering resilient multifunctionality surpassing perfect crystals or simplistic disordered materials. The engineering of such…

A very efficient method for the calculation of the effective optical response of nano-structured composite systems allows the design of metamaterials tailored for specific optical polarization properties. We use our method to design 2D…

During the reversible insertion of ions, lattices in intercalation materials undergo structural transformations. These lattice transformations generate misfit strains and volume changes that, in turn, contribute to the structural decay of…

Magnesium and its alloys are intriguing as possible biodegradable biomaterials due to their unique combination of biodegradability and high specific mechanical properties. However, uncontrolled biodegradation of magnesium during…

Intermetallic clathrates are candidate materials for thermoelectric applications above room temperature. Here we explore whether their intrinsically low lattice thermal conductivities can be further reduced by nanostructuring and whether…

Nanocomposites comprising of high surface area adsorption materials and nanosized transition metals have emerged as a promising strategy for hydrogen storage application due to their inherent ability to store atomic and molecular forms of…

Aggregation of ice particles is a fundamental process in the interstellar medium as well as in planet formation. Dedicated to study the contact physics of nm-ice particles we developed a thermal gradient force microscope. This allows us and…

The freezing of concentrated colloidal suspensions is a complex physical process involving a large number of parameters. These parameters provide unique tools to manipulate the architecture of freeze-cast materials at multiple length scales…

Theoretical calculations of the elastic response of carbon composites and amorphous carbon are reported. The studied composites consist of crystalline nanoinclusions, either spherical diamonds or carbon nanotubes, embedded in amorphous…

We report that nacre (also known as mother-of-pearl), a wondrous nanocomposite found in nature, is a rich photonic nanomaterial allowing the experimental realization of collective excitation and light amplification via coupled states.…

New carbon forms exhibiting extraordinary physico-chemical properties can be generated from nanostructured precursors under extreme pressure. Nevertheless, synthesis of such fascinating materials is often not well understood that results,…

A natural embodiment for multifunctional materials combining energy-storing capabilities and structural mechanical properties are layered structures, similar to both laminate structural composites and electrochemical energy storage devices.…