School of Engineering & Applied Science

PHILADELPHIA — One of the most promising innovations of nanotechnology has been the ability to perform rapid nanofabrication using nanometer-scale tips.  Heating such tips can dramatically increase fabrication speeds, but high speed and high temperature have been known to blunt their atomically sharp points.

PHILADELPHIA — Electronic circuits are typically integrated in rigid silicon wafers, but flexibility opens up a wide range of applications.  In a world where electronics are becoming more pervasive, flexibility is a highly desirable trait, but finding materials with the right mix of performance and manufacturing cost remains a challenge.

PHILADELPHIA — The disease atherosclerosis involves the build up of fatty tissue within arterial walls, creating unstable structures known as plaques. These plaques grow until they burst, rupturing the wall and causing the formation of a blood clot within the artery.

PHILADELPHIA — Making uniform coatings is a common engineering challenge, and, when working at the nanoscale, even the tiniest cracks or defects can be a big problem. New research from University of Pennsylvania engineers has shown a new way of avoiding such cracks when depositing thin films of nanoparticles.  

PHILADELPHIA — The colors of a butterfly’s wings are unusually bright and beautiful and are the result of an unusual trait; the way they reflect light is fundamentally different from how color works most of the time.

This weekend, Penn hosted the first Ivy Plus Symposium and workshops for diverse scholars, a national conference designed to encourage exceptional undergraduate students to pursue advanced training in the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields. 

PHILADELPHIA — Computers may be getting faster every year, but those advances in computer speed could be dwarfed if their 1’s and 0’s were represented by bursts of light, instead of electricity.

PHILADELPHIA — As the world’s accessible oil reserves dwindle, natural gas has become an increasing important energy source. The primary component of natural gas is methane, which has the advantage of releasing less carbon dioxide when it’s burned than do many other hydrocarbon fuels.

PHILADELPHIA — In a ceremony in Levine Hall’s Wu and Chen Auditorium on Aug. 3, the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania graduated its latest class: 70 girls entering the 7th, 8th and 9th grades.

PHILADELPHIA — Many recent advances in microtechnology and nanotechnology depend on microscopic spherical particles self-assembling into large-scale aggregates to form a relatively limited range of crystalline structures.