If you use a vacuum-insulated thermos to help keep your coffee hot, you may know it’s a good insulator because heat energy has a hard time moving through empty space. Vibrations of atoms or molecules, which carry thermal energy, simply can’t travel if there are no atoms or molecules around. But a new study by …
Are We on the Cusp of Frictionless Mechanical Systems?
Mechanical systems, such as gears and wheels, are core components of machines that we use daily. But these machines often require expensive maintenance or replacement because friction caused by physical contact — gears grinding or wheels rubbing against another material — can wear these systems down, causing them to malfunction or work inefficiently.
ME PostDoc Jeongmin Kim Wins 2019 PicoQuant Young Investigator Award at SPIE BiOS
The winners of the Young Investigator Award 2019 are Hugh Wilson for his talk “Tetherless and long-term single molecule FRET in an anti-Brownian trap” and Jeongmin Kim for his talk “Oblique lightsheet STORM for tissue samples.” Congratulations!
Scientists Discover ‘Chiral Phonons’ – Atomic Rotations in a 2-D Semiconductor Crystal
A research team from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found the first evidence that a shaking motion in the structure of an atomically thin (2-D) material possesses a naturally occurring circular rotation.
ME Graduate Student Chengzhi Shi & ME Professor Xiang Zhang Work to Bring High-Speed Communications to the Deep Sea
Photo Credit: Merilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab Could This Strategy Bring High-Speed Communications to the Deep Sea? Originally published by the Berkeley Lab News Center on June 27, 2017 by Sarah Yang 510 486-4575 A new approach to sending acoustic waves through water could potentially open up the world of high-speed communications to activities underwater, including scuba diving, remote ocean …
ME Professor Xiang Zhang Awarded A.C. Eringen Medal from the Society of Engineering Science
ME Professor Xiang Zhang was awarded the 2017 A.C. Eringen Medal, the highest award from the Society of Engineering Science. The Eringen Medal is awarded annually to an individual in recognition of sustained outstanding achievements in Engineering Science. Among former awardees are five Nobel Laureates, and also Berkeley’s own Lofti Zadeh, and late Paul M. Naghdi. The Eringen Medal Symposium will be held in honor of …
ME Professor Xiang Zhang Wins 2016 Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics
ME Professor Xiang Zhang has been awarded the 2016 Julius Springer Prize for Applied Physics. The prize recognizes researchers “”who have made an outstanding and innovative contribution to the field of applied physics. It has been awarded annually since 1998 by the editors-in-chief of the Springer journals Applied Physics A – Materials Science & Processing and Applied Physics B …
ME Professor Xiang Zhang Wins 2016 Max Born Award
ME Professor Xiang Zhang has won the 2016 Max Born Award of The Optical Society OSA. This award honors Max Born, who made distinguished contributions to physics in general and to optics in particular.  The award is presented to a person who has made outstanding contributions to physical optics, theoretical or experimental.  It was established in 1982, …
ME Professor Xiang Zhang Honored with the ASME’s Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award
ME Professor Xiang Zhang has been honored by the ASME with the Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award. The medal is awarded for “”outstanding achievement in mechanical engineering to an engineer within ten years after graduation from the regular engineering course of a recognized college or university.”” Congratulations, Professor Zhang!   To learn more about the …
‘ME Professor Xiang Zhang’s PhD Student, Zi Jing Wong, Wins Jean Bennett Memorial Student Travel Grant at Frontiers in Optics Conference’
Congratulations to ME PhD student Zi Jing Wong on winning the Jean Bennett Memorial Student Travel Grant at the 2015 Frontiers in Optics conference. The grant was “”established in 2008, in memory of Jean M. Bennett, a highly decorated research physicist who was recognized for her contributions to the studies of optical surfaces and served as OSA’s …
‘ME Professor Xiang Zhang works on “Invisibility Cloak” at the Berkeley Lab’
ME Professor and director of Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, Xiang Zhang, has been working with fellow researchers on an “”invisibility cloak,”” which makes 3D objects disappear. To read more about this sci-fi fantasy, turned reality, click here! 
ME Professor Xiang Zhang’s Lab Awarded $2 Million Grant from the National Science Foundation
The Zhang Lab has been awarded a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation NSF. The grant will help fund research in the lab, and a project “”in which they will build devices at the nanometer scale and exploit the electronic and optical properties of two-dimensional materials.””   To learn more about the research …
ME PhD Student Zi Jing Wong Wins Best Paper Award at SPIE Conference
ME Professor Xiang Zhang’s PhD student Zi Jing Wong, has won the Best Student Paper award at the 2015 SPIE Active Photonic Materials Conference. Wong’s award winning paper, “Single Mode Parity-Time Laser,” discusses: “The concept of parity-time PT symmetry exploits the interplay between the material loss and gain to attain novel optical phenomena such as …
American Society of Mechanical Engineers Features ME Professor Xiang Zhang in New Video
Our YouTube page now features a video by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ASME, featuring ME Professor Xiang Zhang, who was awarded their Nancy DeLoye Fitzroy and Roland V. Fitzroy Medal last Fall. Professor Zhang was honored for his “pioneering contributions in metamaterials and the creation of the first optical superlens to overcome the …