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2D hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites
Researchers, working with a subset of 2D hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites -- thin films consisting of alternating organic and inorganic layers in a highly ordered crystalline structure, as shown here – engineered materials that are both stiff and capable of insulating against heat. This extremely unusual combination of properties holds promise for a range of applications.

Credit: Jun Liu, North Carolina State University
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illustration of electrons moving around with abstract colors
Physicists discovered that isolating five ultrathin flakes of graphite, stacked in a specific order, allows the electrons moving around inside the material to talk with each other, a process known as electron correlation (pictured here). The resulting material can then be tuned to exhibit important properties, from superconductivity to magnetism

Credit: Sampson Wilcox, MIT Research Lab
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Super computers lit up.
Super computers lit up.

Credit: Chris Coleman, School of Computing, University of Utah
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lighted objects
Laser setup for cooling, controlling, entangling individual molecules

Credit: Richard Soden, Department of Physics, Princeton University
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Image of robotic snake moving in sand.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers who develop snake-like robots have analyzed the motions of sidewinder rattlesnakes and showed how their complex motion can be described in terms of vertical and horizontal body waves.

Credit: College of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
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In this illustration, an object called a trefoil knot hovers amidst superconducting qubit chips.
In this illustration, an object called a trefoil knot hovers amidst superconducting qubit chips.

Credit: P. Roushan\Martinis lab\UC Santa Barbara
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Beetle wearing a tiny camera on its back.
A pinacate beetle wears a tiny wireless, steerable camera developed by researchers at the University of Washington.

Credit: Mark Stone/University of Washington
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In this illustration, a sheet of paper shows sketches of one of these surfaces, called Kuen's surface, and the expression, called a soliton, which describes it.
"Kuen's Surface: A Meditation on Euclid, Lobachevsky and Quantum Fields," by Dick Palais, University of California, Irvine, and digital artist Luc Benard. In this illustration, a sheet of paper shows sketches of one of these surfaces, called Kuen's surface, and the expression, called a soliton, which describes it.

Credit: ©Luc Benard, University of California, Irvine
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NSF supercomputers
NSF’s Frontera supercomputer is one of the world’s most powerful, able to compute in one second what would take an average human more than a billion years.

Credit: TACC
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