Researchers from Penn's Department of Material Science, led by assistant professor Ertugrul Cubukcu and postdoctoral researcher Fei Yi, along with graduate students Hai Zhu and Jason C. Reed, used a pattern of nanoantennas to develop a new way of turning infrared light into mechanical action.

John Landis of Design and Dan Lee, Camillo Taylor and Vukan Vuchic of SEAS discuss auto fuel-efficiency standards and government involvement in this Knowledge@Wharton article.

Professor Nader Engheta, the H. Nedwill Ramsey Professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, explains metamaterials in this short video. Metamaterials have a wide range of applications from bending waves around an object, rendering it effectively invisible, to using super lenses to boost energy transmission.

Paulo Arratia, Associate Professor at Penn in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, describes the role of fluid mechanics in energy production, amongst other things, in this ASME video.

Prof. Robert Carpick (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences) and his doctoral student, Tevis Jacobs, have experimentally demonstrated atomic attrition--the transfer of material, atom by atom, from one surface to another--with a transmission electron microscope (TEM). Read more here.

The work of Penn Professor Alison Sweeney (Physics) on the biophysics of marine organisms could have implications for biofuels and solar cells. Read more here.

Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology is scheduled to open in November of 2013. Read more here.

A new collaboration between Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science, School of Design, and Carnegie Mellon University focuses on technologies for safe and efficient transportation. Read more about this new consortium here.