Materials Science

Topic description and stories

“Elegant” algae solution wins Cambridge Zero student Climate Challenge

13 Mar 2023

A team of student entrepreneurs who see algae as a potential business solution for reducing methane emissions from landfill and waste-water sites won...

Bamboo bats... Howzat?!

10 May 2021

Cricket bats should be made from bamboo rather than traditional willow, say researchers from Cambridge’s Centre for Natural Material Innovation...

Computer visualisation of villi-like battery material

Next-generation smartphone battery inspired by the gut

26 Oct 2016

A new prototype of a lithium-sulphur battery – which could have five times the energy density of a typical lithium-ion battery – overcomes one of the...

Fingerprinting rare earth elements from the air

01 Jul 2016

Vital to many modern technologies yet mined in few places, the ‘rare earth elements’ are in fact not that rare – they are just difficult to find in...

Structure with symmetric hydrogen bonds induced by the quantum behavior of the protons, represented by the fluctuating blue spheroids

Quantum effects at work in the world’s smelliest superconductor

28 Mar 2016

Researchers have found that quantum effects are the reason that hydrogen sulphide – which has the distinct smell of rotten eggs –behaves as a...

Opinion: Harder than diamond: have scientists really found something tougher than nature’s invincible material?

19 Jan 2016

Paul Coxon (Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy) discusses the materials that have each been heralded as the new “world’s hardest material...

New understanding of how shape and form develop in nature

09 Dec 2015

Researchers have identified a new mechanism that drives the development of form and structure, through the observation of artificial materials that...