Materials Science News
Explore our archive of materials science news stories.
Dec. 13, 2019
Scientists at NREL achieved a technological breakthrough for solar cells previously thought impossible.
Nov. 19, 2019
The list, compiled annually by Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science Group, this year ran to 6,216 names selected for "their exceptional influence and performance."
Oct. 11, 2019
Newly appointed NREL Senior Research Fellow Matt Beard is pursuing new concepts that can impact many types of different energy technologies.
Aug. 22, 2019
NREL’s 2019 Partner Forum brought together energy industry leaders across multiple sectors to discuss today’s energy challenges and explore tomorrow’s potential solutions.
Aug. 19, 2019
A new paper reports a cell efficiency of 20.8%, representing a crossing point for the new group V technology relative to historic copper technology.
Aug. 1, 2019
NREL researchers are creating useful software applications designed to help highlight potential costs and savings associated with renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies. In doing so, they hope to shorten the path to commercialization and increase overall adoption of those technologies.
Aug. 1, 2019
Nitride semiconductors have played an important role in certain technologies, such as light-emitting diodes and radio frequency transistors, but these materials aren't found in nature.
July 16, 2019
NREL hosted twelfth annual symposium on energy storage.
July 16, 2019
NREL research could lead to the development of leading-edge, high-performance vertical transistors.
June 17, 2019
A groundbreaking research effort involving scientists at NREL and at other laboratories around the country yielded the prediction of 203 new stable ternary nitride compounds.
June 7, 2019
Scientists and Engineers to Discuss Ways to Surpass Current State-of-the-Art for Transportation and Electrical Grid Applications
June 5, 2019
Solar cells made from elements in the third and fifth columns of the periodic table have been shown to be highly efficient at converting sunlight into energy, but their high costs pose a drawback and limited their use to niche applications.
May 2, 2019
Plastics are essential to modern life--but it's hard to turn on the TV or browse the web without seeing poignant examples of the plastic life cycle extending far beyond usefulness. NREL Senior Research Fellow Gregg Beckham testified before a U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee about one possible solution to the plastic pollution problem: chemical recycling.
April 22, 2019
While hundreds of millions of tons of trash continue to be dumped into American landfills annually, a growing percentage has been diverted to recycling centers since the first Earth Day in 1970. But these centers aren't set up for renewable energy technologies.
Feb. 25, 2019
The 12th Beyond Lithium Ion Symposium will focus on scalable energy storage beyond the current state-of-the-art for transportation and grid applications.
Feb. 19, 2019
The findings reveal gallium oxide wafers could be three to five times cheaper to manufacture than another related technology, silicon carbide.
Jan. 17, 2019
A year after NREL Researcher Lance Wheeler attracted international attention for his research detailing a window that could both darken and generate electricity, he's starting over--almost from scratch.
