Healable carbon fiber composite offers path to long-lasting, sustainable materials

Aniruddh Vashisth holding a sample of a healable carbon fiber composite
ME Assistant Professor Aniruddh Vashisth holds a sample of a healable carbon fiber composite material that his team is studying. Photo by Andy Freeberg / University of Washington

Because of their high strength and light weight, carbon-fiber-based composite materials are gradually replacing metals for advancing all kinds of products and applications, from airplanes to wind turbines to golf clubs. But there’s a trade-off. Once damaged or compromised, the most commonly-used carbon fiber materials are nearly impossible to repair or recycle

In a paper posted this week in the journal Carbon, a research team that includes UW mechanical engineering Assistant Professor Aniruddh Vashisth describes a new type of carbon fiber reinforced material that is as strong and light as traditionally us...

Read More

Astronomers make most Distant Detection yet of Fluorine in Star-Forming Galaxy

A new discovery is shedding light on how fluorine — an element found in our bones and teeth as fluoride — is forged in the Universe. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, a team of astronomers have detected this element in a galaxy that is so far away its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us. This is the first time fluorine has been spotted in such a distant star-forming galaxy.

A new discovery is shedding light on how fluorine – an element found in our bones and teeth as fluoride – is forged in the Universe...

Read More

Electron Family Creates Previously Unknown State of Matter

A four-part electron family creates a completely new state of matter in a metal. Researchers from the Dresden-Würzburg Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat have demonstrated this unusual phenomenon for the first time worldwide.

Researchers have demonstrated a completely novel state of matter in a metal. It is created by the combination of four electrons — until now, only electron pairs were known. This discovery could lead to a new type of superconductivity, an entirely new research direction, and revolutionary technologies such as quantum sensors.

An international research team from the Cluster of Excellence ct.qmat-Complexity and Topology in Quantum Matter has demonstrated a completely novel state of matter in a metal...

Read More

Creating Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies

Creating Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies | Center for Astrophysics
An optical image of the ultra-diffuse galaxy GMP 4348 in the Coma cluster of galaxies; the scale bar shows a distance of thirty-two thousand light-years. In a spectroscopic study of eleven such galaxies, astronomers have concluded that ram-stripping of gas led these galaxies to shut down star formation and expand, turning them into ultra-diffuse galaxies.

Ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) have very low luminosities, comparatively few stars, and little star-formation activity as compared with normal galaxies of similar sizes...

Read More