VINSE Faculty News

These days, graphene is the rock star of materials science, but it has an Achilles heel: It is exceptionally sensitive to its electrical environment. This single-atom-thick honeycomb of carbon atoms is lighter than aluminum, stronger than steel and conducts heat and electricity better than copper. As a result, scientists around… Read More

Vanadium dioxide crystal lattice (A. Julia Stähler / Fritz Haber Institute) An international team of physicists has developed a method for taking ultrafast “sonograms” that can track the structural changes that take place within solid materials in trillionth-of-a-second intervals as they go through an important physical… Read More

Physicist Kirill Bolotin has won a two-year, $50,000 research fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation aimed at encouraging promising young scholars. He is one of 126 researchers from 51 different colleges and universities in the United States selected to receive the Foundation’s … Read More

Vanderbilt professor Sokrates T. Pantelides has been selected as a 2012 Materials Research Society Fellow. The MRS Fellows will be recognized at the MRS spring meeting in San Francisco in April. Pantelides is a University Distinguished Professor of Physics and Engineering, the William A. and Nancy F. McMinn Professor of… Read More

eter T. Cummings, John R. Hall Professor of Chemical Engineering, and the Principal Scientist of the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been appointed to the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee for the Engineering Directorate and to the Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure. The appointments are… Read More

Sandra Rosenthal has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  Sandy was recognized for her  distinguished contributions to the field of nanochemistry, particularly for synthesis and characterization of nanocrystals and the utilization of nanocrystals as biomarkers of protein expression. FULL ARTICLE>… Read More

The surprising discovery of a new way to tune and enhance thermal conductivity – a basic property generally considered to be fixed for a given material – gives engineers a new tool for managing thermal effects in smart phones and computers, lasers and a number of other powered devices. The… Read More

A new technique for imaging whole cells in liquid – with a nanometer resolution that brings into focus individual proteins and other intracellular structures – could dramatically improve the study of cancer, viral infections and brain function. The technique, electron microscopy (EM) of liquids, also may improve our… Read More

What happens when you attach DNA and other biomolecules to tiny molecular tubes called nanotubes? Answering this question is the goal of the research of Yaqiong Xu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and physics, who has been awarded one of the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development… Read More

Vanderbilt researchers working at the smallest scale celebrate a huge milestone this year. The Vanderbilt Institute of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (VINSE), seeded from a university-funded $16 million venture capital fund initiative, celebrates its 10th anniversary in December. There is much to celebrate, including the fact that in the past… Read More