Advanced materials group

Megavolts Ep 7: Simple test could give 20 years warning for Alzheimer's disease

A simple, cheap and non-invasive blood test could help predict a person's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis (MS) up to 20 years before symptoms show. Physicists from the ANU Research School of Physics have used tiny holes...

The pressure's on: making diamonds that are harder than diamond

Imagine telling your boss that you need to spend $1000 each on two diamonds – for work. But you will use them to create more diamonds!  The catch? You will probably break them in the process (so maybe we’d better get some spares). In...

How a coffee machine helped to make perfect nanopores

An innovative portable manufacturing process, inspired by a coffee machine, has given scientists new insights into fabricating and measuring membranes full of nanometre-scale pores. The process creates perfect nanopores in a material, with diameter as small...

How to make instant diamonds

An international team of scientists has found a way to speed up the creation of diamonds, making them in a room-temperature lab in mere minutes. One of the lead researchers, Professor Jodie Bradby, said their breakthrough shows that Superman may have...

New silicon promises sunnier days for solar tech

An international research team led by The Australian National University (ANU) has made a new type of silicon that better uses sunlight and promises to cut the cost of solar technology. The researchers say their world-first invention could...

New diamond harder than ring bling

The Australian National University (ANU) has led an international project to make a diamond that’s predicted to be harder than a jeweller’s diamond and useful for cutting through ultra-solid materials on mining sites.   ANU Associate...

ANZAC Day image fabricated by Focused Ion Beam

The ANZAC pattern was fabricated by using Focused Ion Bean (FIB) system at the Australian National Fabrication Facility by Dr Evgeny Mironov a recently graduated visiting PhD student from ADFA, to commemorate the 100 years of ANZAC (1915-2015)  The...