System Bits: Oct. 9


Bringing plasmonic color to solid materials Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, used silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) to produce plasmonic color-switchable films for solid materials. This effect was previously achieved only in liquids. Rapid and reversible tuning of plasmonic color in solid films, a challenge until now, holds great promise for a number of applications,” sa... » read more

Who Really Invented The Blue LED?


A dispute is simmering in the materials science community over the just-announced award of Nobel Prize in physics to three Japanese scientists, Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura. Two materials science Ph.D. students from Stanford claim they got there first—two decades earlier, in fact. There's even a U.S. patent filed by Stanford University to prove it. Akasaki and Amano wor... » read more

A Nobel Prize For Modeling And Simulation


This year, a Nobel Prize has been awarded for devising a computer model and simulation process. Bloomberg, which interviewed Marinda Wu by phone, said: “The models let us slow down…and let us look at them one piece at a time.” This enables them to optimize things. At this point you may be thinking one of three things. Either 1) I don’t remember that prize being awarded or, 2) at last ED... » read more