Materials & Matter

Stretchy Material That Gets Stronger When Hit Has Exciting Potential

May 8, 2024

A flexible material that gets stronger the more it is hit and conducts electricity is shown.

Much of the work Yue (Jessica) Wang does at UC Merced sounds like science fiction: She creates flexible material that gets stronger the more you hit it. And it conducts electricity. Science, yes. Fiction, no. This work is happening. It was featured in a presentation materials scientist Di Wu...

A women in a blue lab coat wearing a blue latex glove holds a microscope slide up to the camera.

Grad Student Discovers, Patents Process to Create “Nanofoams” in Liquid Crystals

It sounds like an easy-to-follow recipe from the world of molecular gastronomy: Dissolve nanoparticles in liquid crystals and cool to form frothy nanofoams, tiny tubes and hollow microspheres. But...

Next Generations Building Next-Level Electronics

Imagine a cell phone you can fold up and carry in your wallet. When you drop it, nothing cracks or breaks, or if it does, it repairs itself. And when it’s time for an upgrade, the old phone...

New Consortium Seeks to Expose Students to a Galaxy of Opportunities

Imagine exploring the cores of stars to understand — and ultimately control — the type of fusion that’s taking place. High-energy density (HED) science is the study of properties...

Fundamental Fuel Cell Research Earns Engineer a CAREER Award

To further his fundamental research into solid oxide fuel cells and other high-temperature electrochemical energy systems, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Professor Min Hwan Lee its...

Two students in white lab coats work in a chemistry lab.

$1.5M Grant Will Transform Chemistry Curriculum, Improve Access to STEM Careers

It’s a startling statistic: Nearly 30 percent of UC Merced students who start their college careers in the School of Natural Sciences (SNS) switch to majors outside the science, technology,...

Understanding Why Designs Work — or Don’t — is Important

Just because a design works once doesn’t mean that the research and development is done. That’s why, Professor Sarah Kurtz argues in a new commentary in the prestigious journal...

A woman on the left and man on the right inspect metallic industrial equipment.

I2G Alumni Return as Event Expands, Enters Seventh Year

The idea for a year-end event showcasing School of Engineering students’ original designs started as a scribble on the back of a cocktail napkin and culminated in the exhibition of 12 teams...

Four students stand in front of a poster explaining their Innovate to Grow capstone project.

Wells Fargo Gift Helps ‘Innovate to Grow’ Continue Fall Expansion

Innovate to Grow (I2G), the School of Engineering’s showcase for senior capstone projects and student ingenuity in engineering and entrepreneurship, is emerging as a twice-a-year event, thanks...

A man wearing safety goggles adjusts a laser apparatus with a screwdriver.

Study: Quantum Vibrations Could Help Detect Nuclear Threats

National security and a beautifully resonant violin have found a surprising link — a classic experiment in acoustics, recently replicated at the quantum scale as part of a collaborative project...

Research