An interdisciplinary Northwestern University team has developed a pair of soft, flexible wireless body sensors that replace the tangle of wire-based sensors that currently monitor babies in hospitals’ neonatal intensive care units (NICU) and pose a barrier to parent-baby cuddling and physical bonding. The team recently completed a collection of first human studies on premature…
Fluid-Inspired Material Quickly and Repeatedly Self-Heals
It’s hard to believe that a tiny crack could take down a gigantic metal structure. But sometimes bridges collapse, pipelines rupture and fuselages detach from airplanes due to hard-to-detect corrosion in tiny cracks, scratches and dents. A Northwestern University team has developed a new coating strategy for metal that self-heals within seconds when scratched, scraped…
Moldable Dough Makes Graphene East to Shape
A Northwestern University team is reshaping the world of graphene—literally. The team has turned graphene oxide (GO) into a soft, moldable and kneadable play dough that can be shaped and reshaped into free-standing, three-dimensional structures. Called “GO dough,” the product might be fun to play with, but it’s more than a toy. The malleable material…
Quit Sterilizing Your Dust
Most people have heard about antibiotic-resistant germs. But how about antibiotic-resistant dust? A new Northwestern Engineering study has found that an antimicrobial chemical called triclosan is abundant in dust — and linked to changes in its genetic makeup. The result is dust with organisms that could cause an antibiotic-resistant infection. “There is this conventional wisdom…
DNA Inspires Design of Lighter, Thinner Optical Displays
A Northwestern University team has developed a new set of design principles for making photonic crystals akin to the ones that are typically used in computer, television, and smartphone displays. By using synthetic DNA to assemble particles into crystalline lattices, the researchers have opened the door for much lighter and thinner displays compared to what…
Color-Changing Nanolaser Inspired by Chameleons
As a chameleon shifts its color from turquoise to pink to orange to green, nature’s design principles are at play. Complex nano-mechanics are quietly and effortlessly working to camouflage the lizard’s skin to match its environment. Inspired by nature, a Northwestern University team has developed a novel nanolaser that changes colors using the same mechanism…
Breakthrough Research Stabilizes Highest Capacity Lithium-Ion Battery
A Northwestern University research team has found ways to stabilize a new battery with a record-high charge capacity. Based on a lithium-manganese-oxide cathode, the breakthrough could enable smart phones and battery-powered automobiles to last more than twice as long between charges. “This battery electrode has realized one of the highest-ever reported capacities for all transition-metal-oxide-based…
Carbon Nanotubes Could be as Functional as Common Plastics
Northwestern University’s Jiaxing Huang is ready to reignite carbon nanotube research. And he’s doing so with a common chemical that was once used in household cleaners. By using an inexpensive, already mass produced, simple solvent called cresol, Huang has discovered a way to make disperse carbon nanotubes at unprecedentedly high concentrations without the need for…
Graphene Finds New Life as Hair Dye
It’s an issue that has plagued the beauty industry for more than a century: Dying hair too often can irreparably damage your silky strands. Now a Northwestern University team has used materials science to solve this age-old problem. The team has leveraged super material graphene to develop a new hair dye that is non-toxic, non-damaging…
Computers Are Becoming More Brain-Like
Computer algorithms might be performing brain-like functions, such as facial recognition and language translation, but the computers themselves have yet to operate like brains. “Computers have separate processing and memory storage units, whereas the brain uses neurons to perform both functions,” says Northwestern Engineering’s Mark C. Hersam. “Neural networks can achieve complicated computation with significantly…
Drugs Delivered via Injectable Self-Assembled Nanomaterials
Because they can be programmed to travel the body and selectively target cancer and other sites of disease, nanometer-scale vehicles called nanocarriers can deliver higher concentrations of drugs to bombard specific areas of the body while minimizing systemic side effects. Nanocarriers can also deliver drugs and diagnostic agents that are typically not soluble in water…
Peek Inside Living Cells with New Imaging Technique
To undergo high-resolution imaging, cells often must be sliced and diced, dehydrated, painted with toxic stains, or embedded in resin. For cells, the result is certain death. But if researchers can only view the inner workings of dead cells, they’re only seeing part of the story. They cannot monitor living cells’ dynamic real-time processes, such…
Breakthrough Technique for 3D Printing Extraterrestrial Materials
When humans begin to colonize the moon and Mars, they will need to be able to make everything from small tools to large buildings using the limited surrounding resources. Northwestern Engineering’s Ramille Shah and her Tissue Engineering and Additive Manufacturing (TEAM) Laboratory have demonstrated the ability to 3D-print structures with simulants of Martian and lunar…
New Design Technique Creates Longer-Lasting Batteries
It’s always exciting to bring home a new smartphone that seems to do anything, but it can be all downhill from there. With every charge and discharge cycle, the device’s battery capacity lowers a little bit more — eventually rendering the device completely useless. “Why does this degradation occur? In some cases, we know; in…
Nanomechanics Crack the Code Behind Beetle Exoskeletons
What can a beetle tell us about good design principles? Quite a lot, actually. Many insects and crustaceans possess hard, armor-like exoskeletons that, in theory, should weigh the creatures down. But, instead, the exoskeletons are surprisingly light — even allowing the armor-wearing insects, like the beetle, to fly. Northwestern Engineering’s Horacio D. Espinosa and his…
Smaller Virus Reshaped for Drug Delivery
Viruses are masters of delivery. When we become infected, viruses integrate with our cells in order to insert their own genetic material inside us. So as researchers look for novel ways for more precise drug delivery, using viruses seems like an obvious choice. “There is a lot of work to develop viral vectors into drug…
DNA Naturally Fluoresces, Say Researchers
A Northwestern Engineering team recently caught DNA doing something that has never been seen before: it blinked. For decades, textbooks have stated that macromolecules within living cells, such as DNA, RNA, and proteins, do not fluoresce on their own. Technology instead relies on special fluorescence dyes to enhance contrast when macromolecules are imaged. But now…
Strain is Just Too Much for Ferroelectric Materials
Up until recently, researchers thought they had the behaviors of ferroelectric materials mostly figured out. “The conventional wisdom is that you can put almost any material under mechanical stress, and provided the stress is coherently maintained, the material will become ferroelectric or exhibit an electrical polarization,” says James Rondinelli, assistant professor of materials science and…
Tunable Lasers Could Help Secure Borders
A new development from Northwestern Engineering’s Manijeh Razeghi could be another tool for protecting our borders. Supported by the Department of Homeland Security, Razeghi’s lab has created a new, revolutionary, broad-band tunable infrared laser that has major implications for the detection of drugs and explosives. The robust, all solid-state laser can be rapidly tuned to…