Harnessing the speed of light | MIT News Office

Harnessing the speed of light | MIT News Office: One of Fang’s key discoveries is finding how to beat the diffraction of light. Since light and sound waves tend to spread out when blocked by an obstacle, images and communication signals can become blurry and muddled. In his lab, Fang discovered that by breaking the diffraction barrier, light signals can be sent at 10 times greater capacity. This has allowed him to produce results on the sub-nanometer scale, with light as a machining tool providing “a new degree of precision,” he says.

New ultrastiff, ultralight material developed | MIT News Office

New ultrastiff, ultralight material developed | MIT News Office: The actual production of such materials is made possible by a high-precision 3-D printing process called projection microstereolithography...

“We found that for a material as light and sparse as aerogel [a kind of glass foam], we see a mechanical stiffness that’s comparable to that of solid rubber, and 400 times stronger than a counterpart of similar density. Such samples can easily withstand a load of more than 160,000 times their own weight,” says Fang...

Sandia seeks better neural control of prosthetics for amputees – Sandia Labs News Releases

Sandia seeks better neural control of prosthetics for amputees – Sandia Labs News Releases: Sandia’s research focuses on biomaterials and peripheral nerves at the interface site. The idea is to match material properties to nerve fibers with flexible, conductive materials that are biocompatible so they can integrate with nerve bundles...
The challenges are numerous. Interfaces must be structured so nerve fibers can grow through. They must be mechanically compatible so they don’t harm the nervous system or surrounding tissues, and biocompatible to integrate with tissue and promote nerve fiber growth. They also must incorporate conductivity to allow electrode sites to connect with external circuitry, and electrical properties must be tuned to transmit neural signals...
...Sandia researchers worked with polymers that are liquid at room temperature. Electrospinning these liquid polymers does not result in fiber formation, and the results are sort of like water pooling on a flat surface. To remedy the lack of fiber formation, they electrospun the material onto a heated plate, initiating a chemical reaction to crosslink the polymer fibers as they were formed, Dirk said.
Researchers were able to tune the conductivity of the final composite with the addition of multiwalled carbon nanotubes...
The team’s search for a different technique to create the porous substrates led to projection microstereolithography, developed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as an inexpensive classroom outreach tool. It couples a computer with a PowerPoint image to a projector whose lens is focused on a mirror that reflects into a beaker containing a solution.