Purdue University Engineering Impact

Future Bobsled Competitions May Be Sliding Toward Plastic Ice

A Purdue University professor’s research suggests the Winter Olympics’ icy bobsled tracks could be replaced with a lubricated plastic surface.

Single 'Solitons' Promising for Optical Technologies

Researchers are a step closer to harnessing single pulses of light called solitons, using tiny ring-shaped microresonators, in findings that could aid efforts to develop advanced sensors, high-speed optical communications and research tools.

Silk Fibers Could Be High-tech 'Natural Metamaterials'

Because silk’s nano-architecture is “disordered” instead of meticulously designed periodic structures, the findings suggest a strategy to produce metamaterials that are less expensive to fabricate and manufacture and easier to scale up for industry.