Ju Li

MIT engineers developed a way to make clean ammonia, without fossil-fuel-powered chemical plants, using the Earth as a geochemical reactor, producing ammonia underground.

Key structural metals inside proposed fusion reactors can fail in just a few months. MIT engineers have demonstrated that adding nanoparticles of certain ceramics to the metals can protect them from damage and significantly extend their lifetime.

Materials key to important applications in aerospace and energy generation must be able to withstand extreme conditions such as high temperatures without failing. Now a team of MIT-led engineers reports a simple, inexpensive way to strengthen one of the key materials used today in such applications.

Scientists at MIT have found that neutrons can actually be made to cling to particles called quantum dots, which are made up of tens of thousands of atomic nuclei, held there just by the strong force.

MIT and other researchers developed a framework that reveals phonon stability boundaries in six-dimensional strain space. By analyzing the phonon stability boundary, researchers can understand material properties at extreme conditions and design new materials with desired characteristics.

In principle, quantum-based devices such as computers and sensors could vastly outperform conventional digital technologies for carrying out many complex tasks. But developing such devices in practice has been a challenging problem despite great investments by tech companies as well as academic and government labs.

MIT researchers discovered "neutronic" molecules, in which neutrons can be made to cling to quantum dots, held just by the strong force. The finding may lead to new tools for probing material properties at the quantum level and exploring new kinds of quantum information processing devices.

A statement jointly signed by a historic coalition of experts: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war."

An MIT team reports a giant response of semiconductors to light and explains the atomic origins of the phenomenon. The materials' stiffness increases up to 40 percent in the reversible effect.

MIT faculty from the School of Engineering lead one of the Climate Grand Challenge flagship projects, the Center for Electrification and Decarbonization of Industry.

MIT researchers identified materials that may do a good job of conducting protons — as opposed to electrons — without the need for ultrahigh temperatures. These materials could enable clean-energy tech, such as more efficient and durable fuel cells to produce clean electricity from hydrogen.

An efficient new process can convert carbon dioxide into formate, a material that can be used like hydrogen or methanol to power a fuel cell and generate electricity.

MIT researchers propose a new approach to making qubits, the basic units in quantum computing, and controlling them to read and write data. The method is based on measuring and controlling the spins of atomic nuclei, using beams of light from two lasers of slightly different colors.

Nanoscale 3D transistors made from ultrathin semiconductor materials can operate more efficiently than silicon-based devices, leveraging quantum mechanical properties to potentially enable ultra-low-power AI applications.

A fusion reactor contains some of the most intense conditions in the known universe, and making materials to withstand those conditions isn't easy.

A new class of partially disordered rock salt cathode is a potential breakthrough for lithium-ion batteries and a key to creating low-cost, high-energy storage.

A new way to detect radiation involving cheap ceramics could lead to plethora of new applications, including better detectors for nuclear materials at ports.

A team of scientists has figured out how to convert planet-warming carbon dioxide into a harmless powdery fuel that could be converted into clean electricity

Newly discovered materials can be used to make better solar cells, batteries, computer chips, and more.

New surface treatment technology dramatically improves interface conductivity and could help generate hydrogen and chemical industry ingredients, and improve electrolyzers and fuel cells.