Jennifer Chu

MIT

Jennifer Chu covers mechanical engineering, mathematics, physics, aeronautics, astronautics, and earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences as a writer for the MIT News Office.

Tue, 12/16/2025 - 11:29

New Computer Vision Method Helps Speed Electronic Materials Screening Technique characterizes a material’s electronic properties 85 times faster than conventional methods

Wed, 06/26/2024 - 12:03

Boosting the performance of solar cells, transistors, LEDs, and batteries will require better electronic materials made from novel compositions that have yet to be discovered. To speed up the search for advanced functional materials, scientists are…

Benchtop Test Identifies Extremely Impact-Resistant Materials High-speed experiments help identify lightweight, protective ‘metamaterials’

Wed, 02/21/2024 - 12:03

An intricate, honeycomb-like structure of struts and beams could withstand a supersonic impact better than a solid slab of the same material. What’s more, the specific structure matters, with some being more resilient to impacts than others. That’s…

Tiny Magnetic Beads Could Help to Quickly Detect Pathogens Findings point to faster way to find bacteria in food, water, and clinical samples

Tue, 09/05/2023 - 12:03

Getting blood test results can take anywhere from a day to a week, depending on what a test is targeting. The same goes for tests of water pollution and food contamination. And in most cases, the wait time has to do with time-consuming steps in…

Coloring Outside the Lines Mathias Kolle’s color-changing materials take inspiration from butterflies and mollusks

Wed, 08/16/2023 - 12:01

For Mathias Kolle, the wings of a butterfly are a window into a better material world. The insect’s iridescence is a result of “structural color” rather than pigments or dyes: A single wing is layered with hundreds of thousands of microscopic scales…

Engineers Invent Vertical, Full-Color Microscopic LEDs Stacking LEDs could enable fully immersive VR displays and higher-resolution screens

Thu, 02/23/2023 - 12:00

(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- Take apart your laptop screen and at its heart you’ll find a plate patterned with pixels of red, green, and blue LEDs, arranged end to end like a meticulous Lite-Brite display. When electrically powered, the LEDs together can…

MIT Engineers Grow ‘Perfect’ Atom-Thin Materials on Industrial Silicon Wafers Technique could lead to next-generation transistors based on materials other than silicon

Mon, 02/06/2023 - 12:01

(MIT: Cambridge, MA) -- True to Moore’s Law, the number of transistors on a microchip has doubled every year since the 1960s. But this trajectory is predicted to plateau soon because silicon—the backbone of modern transistors—loses its electrical…

With New Heat Treatment, 3D-Printed Metals Can Withstand Extreme Conditions Technique may enable energy-efficient 3D printing of blades for gas turbines or jet engines

Tue, 11/29/2022 - 12:00

(MIT: Cambridge, Massachusetts) -- A new MIT-developed heat treatment transforms the microscopic structure of 3D-printed metals, making the materials stronger and more resilient in extreme thermal environments. The technique could make it possible…

Stickers That Can See Inside the Body Stamp-sized ultrasound adhesives produce clear images of heart, lungs, and other internal organs

Wed, 08/17/2022 - 12:01

Ultrasound imaging is a safe and noninvasive window into the body’s workings, providing clinicians with live images of a patient’s internal organs. To capture these images, trained technicians manipulate ultrasound wands and probes to direct sound…

Engineers Print Soft, Rubbery Brain Implants Technique may enable speedy, on-demand design of softer, safer neural devices

Thu, 04/30/2020 - 12:02

The brain is one of our most vulnerable organs, as soft as the softest tofu. Brain implants, on the other hand, are typically made from metal and other rigid materials that, over time, can cause inflammation and the buildup of scar tissue. MIT…

Engineers Mix and Match Materials to Make New Stretchy Electronics Next-generation devices made with new “peel and stack” method may include electronic chips worn on the skin

Wed, 02/26/2020 - 12:01

First published Feb. 5, 2020, on MIT News. At the heart of any electronic device is a cold, hard computer chip, covered in a miniature city of transistors and other semiconducting elements. Because computer chips are rigid, the electronic devices…