Nanoscale materials, including thin films, quantum dots, nanowires, nanobelts, etc – are all structurally unique because they have a relatively high ratio of surface area to volume ratio.  This increase in surface area to volume ratio is important for nanomaterials because wide and unexpected variations in mechanical and other physical properties, such as thermal, electrical and optical, have been found to scale in some proportion to increase in surface area to volume ratio.

Faculty Opening - Assistant Professor.  Mechanical Engineering - Design, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University

The Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (HSEAS) seeks applicants for a faculty position as a tenure track assistant professor in the area of mechanical engineering. The ideal candidate will have a strong interest and background in teaching design, as well as outstanding research capabilities. Areas of interest include mechanics and materials (particularly MEMS and NEMS), fluids, mechatronics, robotics, and biomechanics.

Brief description: The Advanced Computational Research Laboratory (http://acor.rpi.edu),
affiliated with the  Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear
Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA invites
applications for a postdoctoral research position to work in the area of in vivo / in situ soft tissue mechanical property estimation and modeling.




The overall goal of this research, funded by the National Institute of

When I came to the institute, my collaborator Kay invited me for a dinner in the new town together with his friend Thilo and other guys. The city is wisely divided into two functioning areas, old town and new town. All the ancient buildings like King’s summer palace, women’s church and opera house are in the old town; while the restaurants, bars and other modern buildings are in the new town. Each is in harmony with its environment and cultural atmosphere.

PRL 99, 175503 (2007);   Jianyu Huang, Feng Ding, Kun Jiao, Boris I Yakobson

Youtube Movie:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSNlE8AreeM    http://www.nature.com/nnano/reshigh/2007/1107/full/nnano.2007.404.html

You are cordially invited to attend a reception, hosted by Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, during the MRS Fall Meeting, on Monday, 26 November 2007, from 7:30 pm to 10 pm, at Independence Room East, 2nd Floor, Sheraton Boston Hotel & Towers, 39 Dalton Street, Boston, MA.

Dean Venky Narayanamurti, Joanna Aizenberg, Michael Aziz, Shriram Ramanathan, Frans Spaepen, Zhigang Suo, Joost Vlassak

The stress-strain behavior and incipient yield surface of nanoporous single crystal copper are studied by the molecular dynamics (MD) method. The problem is modeled by a periodic unit cell subject to multi-axial loading. The loading induced defect evolution is explored. The incipient yield surfaces are found to be tension-compression asymmetric. For given void volume fraction, apparent size effects in the yield surface are predicted: the smaller behaves stronger.

Dear Researchers,  

I am a research student, "Surface modification of materials" is my research topic. I joined your site to discuss the crack propagation during thin film deposition.

 It seems that within the field of fracture mechanics, some authors use "fracture" to refer to the mechanism of creating new surfaces within a body by breaking the material bonds and reserve the word "crack" for the sharp-tipped discontinuity that results from fracture of a brittle material. But it does not appear that this distinction is followed consistently throughout the literature, and perhaps different research areas within the fracture mechanics field use the two words in different ways.