This article first appeared on June 22, 2017, on the UCSB College of Engineering webpage.  Materials scientists around the world are working to develop “superconductors,” materials that can conduct electricity with zero resistance when cooled to a critical point known as the “transition temperature.” At that point, electrons flow across the material with 100-... read more »

The UCSB Materials Department congratulates four Ph.D. graduate students for recently being named 2017 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellows.  Rhys Kennard, Brandon Leu, Sean Murray, and Claire Weaver are first years in the Materials Ph.D. program.  Upon receiving the NDSEG Fellowship, Claire  Weaver said, "I am so proud of the UCSB Materials... read more »

The Materials Department is pleased to announce a new professorship, the Mehrabian Endowed Chair in Materials.  Professor Carlos G. Levi will be the inaugural recipient of this Endowed Chair. Professor Levi is a dedicated educator and world-renowned researcher in the area of inorganic materials for thermo-structural applications, with emphasis on high temperature... read more »

UCSB Materials professor Tresa Pollock was recently named a 2017 Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow. As a Fellow, she will receive a research grant of $3 million over five years to conduct revolutionary research on structural materials.  From the U.S. Department of Defense:  The Department of Defense (DoD) named 13 distinguished university faculty scientists and... read more »

From The Pacific Coast Business Times: The Pacific Coast Business Times is pleased to announce this year’s Central Coast Innovation Awards winners. Each honoree is profiled in the B section of the Feb. 24-March 2 issue of the Business Times. Winners will be honored at an awards reception Thursday, March 16 at the Bacara Resort & Spa from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. The... read more »

From the article, "The little bacterium that could" in The UCSB Current, written by Julie Cohen:  A humble bacterium first isolated in New York’s Lake Oneida almost 30 years ago could change the world. With its innate ability to generate electricity, the little powerhouse might one day pave the way for making wastewater drinkable. The bacterium, Shewanella... read more »

Siddha recently completed his first semester as an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Lehigh University after spending the past decade at UCSB as a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher. During his time as a graduate student, Siddha built an ammonothermal lab and systems for gallium nitride growth and, as a postdoc, utilized the systems he... read more »

From the article "An (Edible) Solution to Extend Produce’s Shelf Life" in The New York Times, written by Stephanie Strom: SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — What if a Florida tomato could be left on the vine long enough to turn red and fully develop its flavor — and still be ripe and juicy when it arrived at a grocery store in New York days later? That is precisely the... read more »

From the article "Solar Cell Game Changer" in the UCSB Current, written by Julie Cohen: With a new technique for manufacturing single-layer organic polymer solar cells, scientists at UC Santa Barbara and three other universities might very well move organic photovoltaics into a whole new generation of wearable devices and enable small-scale distributed power generation.... read more »

From the UCSB Current article, "Atomic Imperfections":  Using cutting-edge first-principles calculations, UCSB Materials professor Chris Van de Walle and researchers in his lab have demonstrated the mechanism by which transition metal impurities — iron in particular — can act as nonradiative recombination centers in nitride semiconductors. The work highlights that such... read more »

From the UCSB Current article "Next-Generation Thermoelectrics":  Imagine charging your cellphone anywhere without having to plug in. Or barely breaking a sweat outside in the middle of summer. How about using a high-performance personal computer that cools its own components? These ideas, and many like them, may be the realities of the not-so-distant future, thanks to UC... read more »

From the UCSB Current article, A Leader of Light: John Bowers, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and of materials at UC Santa Barbara, has been selected to receive the 2017 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Photonics Award. Bowers is the first faculty member from UCSB to receive the honor, which recognizes his “pioneering... read more »