What do a ruby, a transistor, a blue LED, and a quantum sensor have in common? They all work because of point defects. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the point defect, we sit down with Dr. Mike Scarpulla, a professor at the University of Utah and co-editor of a special MRS Bulletin issue on the topic. We explore how a single missing or misplaced atom can change everything. From the history, to the measurement techniques that let us finally see what Frenkel could only imagine, and where defect engineering is headed next.

MTS Bulletin on 100 years of point defects [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more. [LINK]

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

Aluminum may seem like a common metal today, but did you know it was once considered on par with silver? Taylor and Andrew sit down with Marat Latypov, a professor at the University of Arizona, to explore how aluminum went from a precious metal to one of the go-to metals of modern society. We talk about the discovery that collapsed the price from dollars to cents per pound and the patent dispute it caused. We explore how a metal so hungry for oxygen resists corrosion so well and how precipitation hardening was discovered after a weekend getaway. Finally, we look at more recent issues like the challenges of Ford's aluminum F-150, the fire hazards of 1970s aluminum house wiring, and why recycling scrap is harder than it sounds.

How Aluminum Foil is made [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more. [LINK]

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.

We have all seen the heat of atmospheric reentry depicted a thousand times in movies and TV shows, but how do we actually protect spacecraft from that danger? Taylor and Andrew sit down with Nate Olson, an aerospace engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center, to explore the history of thermal protection systems. Nate unpacks the science of surviving atmospheric entry from the simple blunt-body design that made reentry physically possible, to the ~300,000 honeycomb cells hand-caulked with Avcoat on Apollo. We also touch on modern events like the Artemis I heat-shield anomaly and where he believes the technology could be headed.

This episode was sponsored by Expert Lab Services. Learn more about their services on their website [LINK]

The Materialism Podcast is sponsored by Materials Today, an Elsevier community dedicated to the creation and sharing of materials science knowledge and experience through their peer-reviewed journals, academic conferences, educational webinars, and more. [LINK]

Thanks to Kolobyte and Alphabot for letting us use their music in the show!

If you have questions or feedback please send us emails at materialism.podcast@gmail.com or connect with us on social media: Instagram, Twitter.

Materialism Team: Taylor Sparks, Andrew Falkowski, & Jared Duffy.