Holding the right material at the right angle, Cornell researchers have discovered a strategy to switch the magnetization in thin layers of a ferromagnet – a technique that could eventually lead to the development of more energy-efficient magnetic memory devices. The team’s paper, “Tilted Spin Current Generated by the Collinear Antiferromagnet Ruthenium Dioxide,” published May 5 in Nature Electronics. The paper’s co-lead authors are postdoctoral researcher Arnab Bose and doctoral students Nathaniel Schreiber and Rakshit Jain.

When Kristina Hugar was working on her Ph.D. at Cornell, she wasn’t just doing science for science’s sake. “I care very deeply about the environment and climate change, and I wanted to figure out a way to focus my career and life on addressing the defining crisis of our time,” said Hugar, M.S. ’12, Ph.D. ’16, whose dissertation research improved alkaline exchange membrane materials to make alternative energy sources more effective. She, like scores of other clean energy entrepreneurs, have found at Cornell an innovative, powerful ecosystem that supports the transition to a sustainable and decarbonized economy.

Cornell and two Cornell research-startups have joined a consortium that aims to propose a Northeast research hub to make hydrogen a viable, clean-energy alternative to carbon-based fuels. The New York-led multistate collaboration is guided by Gov. Kathy Hochul and organized by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). With approximately $9.6 billion available in federal funding, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is expected to request proposals starting in early May for regional hydrogen centers that would offer a broad array of services, which will likely include research and demonstration projects. The Northeast group plans to apply for a portion of that federal funding.

New research from Cornell scientists is exploring how human genetics impacts functions of the gut microbiome, and is expanding awareness of the role human genetics plays in shaping the microbiome. The trillions of individual organisms constituting a person’s gut microbiome greatly impact metabolic function, disease and overall health. What has been less clear is how and to what extent the gut microbiome is, in turn, shaped by the genome of its human host. Ilana Brito, assistant professor and Mong Family Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow in the Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, and her coauthors took a novel approach to examining host-microbiome genetic interactions and were able to show many instances where a human host’s genetic makeup directly affected the functional performance of the gut microbiome.

Cornell engineers have created a deep-ultraviolet laser using semiconductor materials that show great promise for improving the use of ultraviolet light for sterilizing medical tools, purifying water, sensing hazardous gases and enabling precision photolithography, among other applications. When it comes to ultraviolet light, two important qualities are frequency – certain frequencies are best for destroying viruses or sensing molecules – and linewidth, a measure of the laser’s precision. Scientists and engineers seek sources of higher quality, more efficient ultraviolet light emission, but it’s challenging to work with the semiconductor materials that can enable this. A paper published March 11 in the journal AIP Advances details how Cornell scientists produced an aluminum gallium nitride-based device capable of emitting a deep-ultraviolet laser at sought-after wavelengths and modal linewidths.

Photocathodes are materials that emit electrons when illuminated by light, and are vital to the performance of some of the world’s most powerful particle accelerators. But due to poor crystalline properties, photocathodes have yet to realize their full potential. Cornell researchers are addressing this limitation. A team of researchers at Cornell’s Center for Bright Beams, a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center, has developed a technique to create a single-crystal alkali antimonides photocathode, with an efficiency up to 10 times higher than its predecessors.

A nitrogen doped carbon-coated nickel anode can catalyze an essential reaction in hydrogen fuel cells at a fraction of the cost of the precious metals currently used, Cornell researchers have found. The new discovery could accelerate the widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells, which hold great promise as efficient, clean energy sources for vehicles and other applications. It’s one of a string of discoveries for the Héctor D. Abruña lab in their ongoing search for active, inexpensive, durable catalysts for use in alkaline fuel cells.

From a nanoscale “brobot” flexing its muscles to a discussion of the artistry of scientific images, participants at a March 9 event got an up-close look at how quantum science and nanotechnology are shaping our lives. “Arts Unplugged: Science of the Very, Very Small” included both online and in-person activities, centered around 11 TED-style talks given by faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences. The faculty shared their research and thoughts on topics from gene manipulation and miniature robots to ethical considerations of nanotech and the interplay between science and fiction through an online eCornell presentation, which was also livestreamed to audiences in the Groos Family Atrium in Klarman Hall and the Clark Atrium in the Physical Sciences Building. The recording of the event is available to watch for free on eCornell.

Superconductors – metals in which electricity flows without resistance – hold promise as the defining material of the near future, according to physicist Brad Ramshaw, and are already used in medical imaging machines, drug discovery research and quantum computers being built by Google and IBM. However, the super-low temperatures conventional superconductors need to function – a few degrees above absolute zero – make them too expensive for wide use. In their quest to find more useful superconductors, Ramshaw, the Dick & Dale Reis Johnson Assistant Professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), and colleagues have discovered that magnetism is key to understanding the behavior of electrons in “high-temperature” superconductors. With this finding, they’ve solved a 30-year-old mystery surrounding this class of superconductors, which function at much higher temperatures, greater than 100 degrees above absolute zero.

The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) has announced the election of Jan Lammerding, Professor / Director of Graduate Studies, Biomedical Engineering, Cornell University to its College of Fellows. Dr. Lammerding was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers and members of the AIMBE College of Fellows for outstanding contributions to the field of the mechanobiology of the cell nucleus and for commitment to graduate training. Jan Lammerding's lab at Cornell has pioneered research into the mechanobiology of the cell nucleus, including determining the mechanical properties of the cell nucleus, understanding how the cell nucleus can sense mechanical stimuli (“nuclear mechanotransduction”), and defining the role of nuclear mechanobiology in human diseases