A collaborative team (including Itai Cohen, Paul McEuen, and postdocs Michael Reynolds and Alejandro Cortese) has installed electronic “brains” on solar-powered robots that are 100 to 250 micrometers in size – smaller than an ant’s head – so that they can walk autonomously without being externally controlled.

In exploring a family of two-dimensional crystals, a husband-and-wife team is uncovering a potent variety of new electron behaviors.

Cornell University's Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics is soliciting applications for the Bethe/Wilkins/KIC Postdoctoral Fellowship. This prize fellowship will provide an outstanding theoretical physicist the opportunity to work with theorists and experimentalists in Cornell's physics department. The 2022 application cycle for the Bethe/Wilkins KIC Postdoctoral Fellowship for Theoretical Physics is open. The due date for applications is September 24, 2022.

KIC POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS are high-profile, two-to-three-year postdoctoral positions with significant independence and resources. The KIC Fellows program is designed to attract the best and brightest young researchers in nanoscale science to Cornell. The 2022 application cycle for the KIC Postdoctoral Fellowship for Experimental Physics is now open. The due date for applying is October 14, 2022.

Humans have achieved spectacular large-scale engineering feats, but “we are still kind of stuck when it comes to engineering miniaturized machines,” says Itai Cohen, a Cornell University physicist and senior author of a new Nature study describing his team’s cilia chip. Researchers had previously tried to make artificial cilia that worked by means of pressure, light, electricity and even magnets. But a major hurdle remained: designing extremely tiny actuators—the motion-triggering parts of a machine—that can be controlled individually or in small clusters rather than all at once.

“The information content in a piece of material can quickly exceed the total information content in the Library of Congress, which is about 20 terabytes,” said Eun-Ah Kim, professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences, who is at the forefront of both quantum materials research and harnessing the power of machine learning to analyze data from quantum material experiments. “The limited capacity of the traditional mode of analysis – largely manual – is quickly becoming the critical bottleneck,” Kim said.

Researchers have now designed a micro-sized artificial cilial system using platinum-based components that can control the movement of fluids at such a scale. The technology could someday enable low-cost, portable diagnostic devices for testing blood samples, manipulating cells or assisting in microfabrication processes.

Cornell researchers have untangled the intricate physics and neural controls that enable dragonflies to right themselves while they’re falling.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The College of Arts and Sciences awarded $1.25 million in grants to faculty members pursuing critical developments in areas ranging from quantum materials to sustainable technologies.