(Press-News.org) OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Nov. 12, 2012 – Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have reported progress in fabricating advanced materials at the nanoscale. The spontaneous self-assembly of nanostructures composed of multiple elements paves the way toward materials that could improve a range of energy efficient technologies and data storage devices.
ORNL Materials Science and Technology Division researcher Amit Goyal led the effort, combining theoretical and experimental studies to understand and control the self-assembly of insulating barium zirconium oxide nanodots and nanorods within barium-copper-oxide superconducting films.
"We found that a strain field that develops around the embedded nanodots and nanorods is a key driving force in the self-assembly," said Goyal, a UT-Battelle Corporate Fellow. "By tuning the strain field, the nanodefects self-assembled within the superconducting film and included defects aligned in both vertical and horizontal directions."
The controlled assembly within the superconducting material resulted in greatly improved properties, Goyal said, including a marked reduction in the material's anisotropy, or directional dependence, desired for many large-scale, high-temperature superconductivity applications.
The strain-tuning the team demonstrated has implications in the nanoscale fabrication of controlled, self-assembled nanostructures of multiple elements, with properties suitable for a range of electrical and electronic applications, including multiferroics, magnetoelectrics, thermoelectrics, photovoltaics, ultra-high density information storage and high-temperature superconductors.
"Such nanocomposite films with different overall composition, concentration, feature size and spatial ordering can produce a number of novel and unprecedented properties that are not exhibited in individual materials or phases comprising the composite films," Goyal said.
### The research, reported today in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability and Laboratory Directed Research and Development funding. A portion of the research was conducted at ORNL's SHaRE User Facility, which is supported by the DOE Office of Science.
Co-authors with Goyal are ORNL's Sung Hun Wee, Yanfei Gao, Karren L. More, Jianxin Zhong and Malcolm Stocks and the University of Tennessee 's Yuri L. Zuev and Jianyong Meng.
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle for the DOE Office of Science. DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov.
NOTE TO EDITORS: You may read other press releases from Oak Ridge National Laboratory or learn more about the lab at http://www.ornl.gov/news. Additional information about ORNL is available at the sites below:
Twitter - http://twitter.com/oakridgelabnews
RSS Feeds - http://www.ornl.gov/ornlhome/rss_feeds.shtml
Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/oakridgelab
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/user/OakRidgeNationalLab
LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/companies/oak-ridge-national-laboratory
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/Oak.Ridge.National.Laboratory
'Strain tuning' reveals promise in nanoscale manufacturing
2012-11-13
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Cilia guide neuronal migration in developing brain
2012-11-13
A new study demonstrates the dynamic role cilia play in guiding the migration of neurons in the embryonic brain. Cilia are tiny hair-like structures on the surfaces of cells, but here they are acting more like radio antennae.
In developing mouse embryos, researchers were able to see cilia extending and retracting as neurons migrate. The cilia appear to be receiving signals needed for neurons to find their places.
Genetic mutations that cause the neurodevelopmental disorder Joubert syndrome interfere with these migratory functions of cilia, the researchers show. The ...
Emotional disconnection disorder threatens marriages, researcher says
2012-11-13
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Communication can be challenging for any married couple, but a personality trait called alexithymia that keeps people from sharing or even understanding their own emotions can further impede marital bliss. University of Missouri interpersonal communication researchers found when one spouse suffers from alexithymia, the partners can experience loneliness and a lack of intimate communication that lead to poor marital quality.
Nick Frye-Cox, a doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, says people with alexithymia can describe ...
Housing quality associated with children's burn injury risk
2012-11-13
A new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy finds many children may be at heightened risk for fire and scald burns by virtue of living in substandard housing. Researchers surveyed the homes of 246 low-income families in Baltimore with at least one young child, and found homes with more housing quality code violations were less likely to have a working smoke alarm and safe hot water temperatures. The report is published in the December issue of the journal Pediatrics.
"The effect of substandard housing on children's risk of diseases ...
Snap judgments during speed dating
2012-11-13
PASADENA, Calif.—For speed daters, first impressions are everything. But it's more than just whether someone is hot or not.
Whether or not we like to admit it, we all may make snap judgments about a new face. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in speed dating, during which people decide on someone's romantic potential in just a few seconds. How they make those decisions, however, is not well understood.
But now, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have found that people make such speed-dating decisions based on a combination of two different ...
The aftermath of calculator use in college classrooms
2012-11-13
PITTSBURGH—Math instructors promoting calculator usage in college classrooms may want to rethink their teaching strategies, says Samuel King, postdoctoral student in the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research & Development Center. King has proposed the need for further research regarding calculators' role in the classroom after conducting a limited study with undergraduate engineering students published in the British Journal of Educational Technology.
"We really can't assume that calculators are helping students," said King. "The goal is to understand the core ...
Divorce costs thousands of women health insurance coverage
2012-11-13
ANN ARBOR---About 115,000 women lose their private health insurance every year in the wake of divorce, according to a University of Michigan study.
And this loss is not temporary: women's overall rates of health insurance coverage remain depressed for more than two years after divorce.
"Given that approximately one million divorces occur each year in the U.S., and that many women get health coverage through their husbands, the impact is quite substantial," says Bridget Lavelle, a U-M Ph.D. candidate in public policy and sociology, and lead author of the study, which ...
Nurse practitioners: The right prescription to ease doctor shortage
2012-11-13
ANN ARBOR—Reports indicate that Michigan faces a physician shortage much larger than the national average, and it will grow as millions of Americans qualify for insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
Yet Michigan law prevents the medical professionals who could best mitigate this shortage from doing so, because it prohibits advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) from using the full scope of their training and education to treat patients.
"Current regulations make it more difficult to provide much needed care," said Joanne Pohl, professor emeritus at the University ...
Smoking parents often expose children to tobacco smoke in their cars
2012-11-13
MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) investigators found that a majority of interviewed smoking parents exposed their children to tobacco smoke in their cars, even though many had smoke-free policies at home. The study that will appear in the December 2012 issue of Pediatrics and has been released online, suggests that parents may not recognize the dangers of smoking in their cars with a child present.
"Workplaces, restaurants, homes and even bars are mostly smoke-free, but cars have been forgotten," says Emara Nabi-Burza, MBBS, MS, the study's lead author. "Smoking ...
Study examines how elderly go from being perceived as capable consumer to 'old person'
2012-11-13
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Many baby boomers want to improve the way people view aging, but an Oregon State University researcher has found they often reinforce negative stereotypes of old age when interacting with their own parents, coloring the way those seniors experience their twilight years.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with consumers in their late 80s, their family members, and paid caregivers, Oregon State University researcher Michelle Barnhart found that study participants viewed someone as "old" when that person consumed in ways consistent with society's concept of ...
Pictures effective in warning against cigarette smoking
2012-11-13
San Diego, CA, November 13, 2012 – Health warning labels (HWLs) on cigarette packages that use pictures to show the health consequences of smoking are effective in reaching adult smokers, according to the results of a new study published in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Although previous studies have demonstrated that HWLs with pictorial imagery are more effective than HWLs with only text in increasing knowledge about smoking dangers and promoting the benefits of quitting, this new research shows which kind of pictures appears to work ...