By Jamie Oberdick
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Mingyu Yu, doctoral candidate in materials science and engineering at Penn State, recently received the Graduate Student Research Award from the professional society AVS: Science and Technology of Materials, Interfaces and Processing for innovative research in two-dimensional materials.
By Matthew Carroll
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ferroelectrics are special materials with polarized positive and negative charges — like a magnet has north and south poles — that can be reversed when external electricity is applied. The materials will remain in these reversed states until more power is applied, making them useful for data storage and wireless communication applications.
(e) bmf141@psu.edu
(o) 814 863 8997
229 Reber Building
(e) asr20@psu.edu
(o) 814 863 4387
236A Reber Building
(e) rps6353@psu.edu
N-257/2 Millennium Science Complex
By Sarah Small
Continuously monitoring a person’s pulse can provide meaningful medical information, such as heart rate and, indirectly, blood pressure. However, pulse waves can vary dramatically from person to person and even within the same person at different times of day and during different activities. These variations make it difficult for current wearable pulse sensors to accurately record useful data, which is especially problematic for those with cardiovascular disease or high-risk factors for those diseases.
As Wheeler Davey’s tenure as leader of the X-ray diffraction group came to an end with his retirement in 1949, other important faculty came to Penn State to lead X-ray diffraction into the second half of the 20th Century. One was Ray Pepinsky, who joined the Penn State faculty soon after Davey’s retirement. Pepinsky was a leading expert in the field of determination of structures, atomic locations, polarity, and bonding through detailed X-ray analysis.
Merrell Fenske joined the Penn State chemical engineering and chemistry faculty in 1929 as the Great Depression was dawning, inspiring him to focus his research on aiding the Pennsylvania petroleum industry.
Susan Brantley joined the Penn State Geoscience Faculty in 1986. Brantley’s research focused on low-temperature fluid-mineral interactions, biological reactions in water-rich soils, and the geochemical processes transforming rock into soil. From these natural weathering processes, she established key mechanisms and rates to predict geological stability, landscape evolution, and contaminant movement through soil and rocks.
