1 0 A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 charge, lithium ions flow from one side of the battery to the other. With this in mind, the team built a lithium-ion battery that uses a special material at one end—a compound whose magnetism changes as lithium ions enter or leave it. This makes it possible to measure the battery’s level of charge by tracking changes in the material’s magnetism, the researchers say. The team’s magneto-ionic material is made from vanadium, chromium, and cyanide, plus an aqua ligand. buffalo.edu. TESTING | CHARACTERIZATION ‘FRUITCAKE’ STRUCTURE IN ORGANIC POLYMERS The field of organic electronics has benefited from the discovery of new semiconducting polymers with molecular backbones that are resilient to twists and bends, meaning they can transport charge even if they are flexed into different shapes. It had been assumed that these materials resemble a plate of spaghetti at the molecular scale, without any long-range order. However, an international team of researchers found that for at least one such material, there are tiny pockets of order within. These ordered pockets are stiffer than the rest of the material, giving it a “fruitcake” structure with harder and softer regions. The work was led by the University of Cambridge and Park Systems UK Limited, with KTH Stockholm in Sweden, the Universities of Namur and Mons in Belgium, and Wake Forest University in the U.S. Measurements of the stiffness of the material on the nanoscale showed that the areas where the polymers self-organized in- to ordered regions were harder, while the disordered regions of the material were softer. Studying and understanding the mechanical properties of these materials at the nanoscale could help scientists finetune those properties and make the materials suitable for a wider range of applications including next-generation microelectronic and bioelectronic devices. www.cam.ac.uk. MAGNETS MONITOR BATTERY LIFE A team of scientists at the University at Buffalo is using a magnetic material to monitor the remaining life in rechargeable batteries. A new study shows how a magnetic material can be used to help monitor the amount of life left in a rechargeable battery before it needs to be recharged. As lithium-ion batteries charge and dis- Researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities discovered how subtle structural changes in strontium titanate, a metal oxide semiconductor, can alter the material’s electrical resistance and impact its superconducting properties. They say the results could help guide materials design related to superconductivity and create more efficient semiconductors for electronic device applications. twin-cities.umn.edu. BRIEF Studies of an organic polymer reveal variations in hardness at the nanoscale. Courtesy of University of Cambridge. Yulong Huang holds a lithium-ion battery with a cathode made frommagneto-ionic material. Courtesy of Douglas Levere/ University at Buffalo. HIGHLY REPEATABLE COLORCHANGING PROPERTY Hackmanite was discovered by researchers at the University of Turku, Finland, to be color-changing when exposed to UV radiation repeatedly without wearing out. The results show that the inexpensive hackmanite, which
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