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Explaining Superconductivity at High Temperatures

12-16-11

William A. Goddard III, Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics, and colleagues have developed a hypothesis to explain the strange behavior of high-temperature superconductors—copper oxides, or cuprates, that conduct electricity without any resistance at temperatures much higher than other superconducting metals. Their hypothesis also points the way to a method for making even higher-temperature superconductors. [Caltech press release]

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Using DNA to Manufacture Nanoscale Devices

11-16-11

William A. Goddard III, Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics, has received $1.25 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop a process that takes advantage of DNA's talent for self-assembly to arrange nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and proteins into configurations designed for use in devices such as sensors, transistors, and optical components. [Caltech Feature]

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Disorder Is Key to Nanotube Mystery

08-12-11

William A. Goddard III, Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics; and Posdoctoral Scholar Tod Pascal believe to have solved the mystery of why water spontaneously flows into extremely small tubes of graphite or graphene, called carbon nanotubes.  Using a novel method to calculate the dynamics of water molecules they have found that entropy is the missing key.  "It's a pretty surprising result," says Professor Goddard "People normally focus on energy in this problem, not entropy." [Caltech Press Release]

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Professor Goddard Named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

04-20-10

William A. Goddard III, Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics, has been elected to 2010 American Academy of Arts and Sciences class of fellows. Professor Goddard joins an assembly that was founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholars to provide practical solutions to pressing issues. [Caltech Today Article]

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DNA Origami Nanoscale Breadboards for Carbon Nanotube Circuits

11-10-09

Hareem T. Maune, a graduate student studying carbon nanotube physics, and Si-ping Han, a graduate student investigating the interactions between carbon nanotubes and DNA have developed DNA origami nanoscale breadboards for carbon nanotube circuits. "This collaborative research project is evidence of how we at Caltech select the top students in science and engineering and place them in an environment where their creativity and imagination can thrive," says Ares Rosakis, chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science at Caltech and Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Professor of Mechanical Engineering. The work of these students was supervised by: Erik Winfree, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Computation and Neural Systems, and Bioengineering; William A. Goddard III, Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics; Paul W.K. Rothemund, Senior Research Associate, and Marc Bockrath, Associate Professor of Physics at University of California Riverside. [Caltech Press Release]

Tags: APhMS research highlights CMS Erik Winfree William Goddard Paul Rothemund Si-ping Han

Goddard and Heath Report that Making Silicon Into Nanowires Could Create Highly Efficient Thermoelectric Materials

01-10-08

Silicon nanowires are laying the foundation for a new type of cheap yet energy-efficient microscopic refrigeration, with no moving parts. [Caltech Press Release]

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