In biology, defects are generally bad. But in materials science, defects can be intentionally tuned to give materials useful new properties. Today, atomic-scale defects are carefully introduced during ...

IN the ideal crystal, graphite consists of infinite sheets of fused aromatic rings, packed in parallel and with hexagonal symmetry of the atoms. Actual crystals of graphite show various types of ...

Quantum engineers have spent years trying to tame the fragility of qubits, only to be thwarted by the tiniest imperfections in the materials they use. Now a new line of research flips that problem on ...

(Nanowerk News) Two-dimensional materials are essential for developing new ultra-compact electronic devices, but producing defect-free 2D materials is a challenge. However, discovery of new types of ...

If we are to prevent the impending environmental crisis, it is imperative that we find efficient and sustainable ways to avoid being wasteful. One area with much room for improvement is the recycling ...

Researchers have explored a 'quantum-inspired' technique to make the 'ones' and 'zeroes' for classical computer memory applications out of crystal defects, each the size of an individual atom. This ...

Most materials, especially metals and ceramics, are crystals. Their atoms are arranged in three-dimensional lattices that repeat the same exact pattern, over and over again. But there's a well-known ...