Mesoscale Science Research Highlighted on Materials Journal Cover

Professors Sang Bok Lee (Chemistry) and Gary Rubloff (Materials Science/ISR) wrote a review article that was featured on the cover of the August 2015 issue of Current Opinion in Solid State & Materials Science. Their article “New science at the meso frontier: Dense nanostructure architectures for electrical energy storage” examines the scientific challenges and opportunities presented at the mesoscale in the context of employing nanostructures for electrical energy storage.

Mesoscale science has become a central focus for the research that Rubloff and Lee oversee as directors of an Energy Frontier Research Center, funded by the Department of Energy. The center -- Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage (NEES) -- covers research on all aspects of nanostructures, but has increasingly focused on key scientific challenges that emerge when huge numbers of nanostructures are densely packed together. Rubloff and Lee’s article highlights new issues of ion and electron transport in confined spaces, how nanostructure arrangement influences behavior of the aggregate, and what defects and degradation mechanism arise, the last featured on the cover of the journal’s special issue on “Opportunities in Mesoscale Science”.

A broader picture of mesoscale science, “From Quanta to the Continuum: Opportunities for Mesoscale Science”, was issued by the Department of Energy in 2012, reflected emerging ideas from NEES research.

Published September 9, 2015