In late September, members of the NSF-funded Partnership for Research and Education in Advanced Materials (PREM) Center, Collaborative Research and Education in Advanced Materials (CREAM), and the DOE-funded Center for Electrochemical Dynamics and Reactions on Surfaces (CEDARS) attended the 71st American Vacuum Society International Symposium and Exhibition in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they presented their research.

A team of researchers from the U.S. and India has developed a powerful new sensor that can identify dangerous levels of iron in water faster, cheaper, and with far greater accuracy than existing methods. The project was led by Fei Yan, professor at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). Yan is also part of the NSF PREM for Hybrid Nanoscale Systems.

A Texas State University undergraduate student has been awarded a Barry Goldwater Scholarship, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for future scientists, mathematicians, and engineers.

In May, close to 100 students from 26 institutions across the United States came together in San Marcos, Texas for the CAMPS 2025 conference. More than just a scientific meeting, CAMPS—short for Conference Across MRSEC and PREM Schools—has carved out a unique identify as a conference organized by students, for students.

PREM researchers at North Carolina A&T State University (NCAT) and the University of California at San Diego recently created thin films of titanium oxynitride (TiNO)—a material with excellent optical and light-manipulating (plasmonic) properties—using a method where a laser pulses to deposit the material in a vacuum.

Each year, nearly 8,000 school-age kids watch PREM researchers at the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) deliver awe-inspiring performances: a race between two people to lift a one-ton weight, gummy bears that burst loudly into flames, giant pendulums or wrecking balls swinging dangerously close to the face, and dance—so much dance.

2024 marked the 20^th anniversary of NSF’s PREM program. The PREM community celebrated this milestone at the NSF PREM Research Scholars Summit, held at the recent Materials Research Society meeting in Boston, Massachusetts.

Texas State University welcomed elementary and high school students for a STEM-focused field trip filled with hands-on experiments, lab tours, and campus exploration. The event aimed to inspire curiosity and a passion for science in the next generation. Image: Atkins CAST High School 12th grade group attends STEM Field Trip at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas. Photo courtesy of Tania Betancourt.

UTA research teams have recently created a new type of pH-sensitive peptide material that includes artificial amino acids with different chemical structures in their side chains. By varying the hydrophobic and ionic properties of these amino acids, these materials can be engineered to leverage pH variations across different bodily environments, spanning organ, tissue, and cellular levels. By harnessing these pH gradients, the pH-responsive peptides are expected to efficiently deliver therapeutic agents to specific tissues or even cellular compartments.

The PREM team at the University of Texas Arlington recently created a special layered material that uses different quantum states to control how electrons move. By stopping the flow of high-energy (hot) electrons and only letting low-energy (cold) electrons pass through, they achieved an electron flow with a temperature as low as 0.8 K (-272 °C). This ultra-cold electron flow can help develop new, energy-saving transistors. More details are available in the paper, "Sub-1K Cold-Electron Switching at Room Temperature," published in Nano Letters.