A review discussing the creation of new materials from nanoparticles in a recent issue of SCIENCE

Professor Tyler Ray, with collaborators at the University of California, Santa Barbara, published a review discussing the creation of new materials from nanoparticles in a recent issue of SCIENCE.

Materials made from nanoscale particles (particles which measure less than one percent of the width of a human hair) create opportunities to design new functional materials having unique responses to external stimuli, such as light, electrical and magnetic fields, and mechanical deformation.

The central challenges in developing these new classes of functional nanocomposite materials have been summarized in a review article co-authored by Tyler Ray, a University of Hawaii Manoa engineering professor, and  Matthew Begley and Daniel Gianola of UC Santa Barbara’s College of Engineering. The review, published in a recent issue of Science, titled “Bridging functional nanocomposites to robust macroscale devices,” describes the current state of the field, maps out future research directions, identifies challenges to progress, and highlights more than thirty projects that represent important directions and approaches going forward.

The article illustrates that a central need for tomorrow’s materials scientists and engineers is to gain sufficient control during processing at multiple size scales. To realize new devices, materials synthesized from the nanoscale to the mesoscale must be able to survive, intact, the strong forces that are encountered in manufacturing processes.”