Gold membrane coaxes secrets out of surfaces

Thousand-fold signal amplification

26-Jun-2024 - Using a special wafer-thin gold membrane, ETH researchers have made it significantly easier to study surfaces. The membrane makes it possible to measure properties of surfaces that are inaccessible to conventional methods. “Surfaces were invented by the devil” - this quote is attributed to the ...

New corrosion protection that repairs itself

An extraordinary corrosion protection was created from a chance find: It glows in places where it is not damaged, repairs itself – and can be reused multiple times

22-Feb-2023 - Skyscrapers, bridges, ships, aeroplanes, cars – everything humans make or build sooner or later decays. The ravages of time are known as corrosion; nothing is safe from it. This makes the fight against corrosion expensive. All countries together invest around 3.5 percent of annual global gross ...

ETH Zurich researchers want to make salt printing marketable

They have also come up with a name for their start-up: “Sallea”, a portmanteau of “salt leaching”.

06-Oct-2022 - Materials scientists Nicole Kleger and Simona Fehlmann have developed a 3D printing process for creating salt templates that they can fill with other materials. One area of application is the creation of highly porous lightweight metal components. The two Pioneer Fellows are now trying to ...

When sand behaves like oil

08-May-2019 - Sand, coffee grounds and rice behave very differently than water or oil, but under certain conditions they will suddenly exhibit astonishing similarities. Scientists have found a way to better understand the behaviour of granular materials. Sand, rice and coffee are all examples of granular ...

Custom-made artificial mother-of-pearl

Researchers developed an imitation comparable to mother-of-pearl, the physical properties of which can be specifically adjusted

14-Dec-2018 - Natural mother-of-pearl, such as mussels, is one of the hardest, most stable and stiff natural materials. Researchers have always been fascinated by it. The structure of mother-of-pearl is exquisite under the electron microscope; it looks like a miniature brick wall, the joints of which are ...

The stiffest porous lightweight materials ever

13-Dec-2018 - Researchers at ETH have developed and manufactured a family of architectures that maximises the stiffness of porous lightweight materials. It’s practically impossible to develop stiffer designs. 3D printing and other additive production techniques make it possible to manufacture materials with ...

Perfect inversion

29-Aug-2018 - Perfectly inverting complex structures is of great technical importance. Researchers at ETH have now succeeded in turning the magnetic and electric structure of materials into their opposites using a single magnetic field pulse. Whenever it gets unpleasantly loud, active noise reduction has been ...

A dream of foam

19-Sep-2017 - Oktoberfest in Munich is an exciting cultural event, but it is also a source of inspiration for materials scientists and engineers. Not the beer itself, but rather the beer foam is a source of inspiration. A good head of foam -- generally measuring about 1.5 cm and containing an impressive ...