A Polymer That Defies Nature: The First Molecularly Impermeable Plastic

For decades, scientists believed all plastics shared one unavoidable weakness: no matter how dense or strong, gases could always slip through. Even the toughest polymers, from bulletproof Kevlar to everyday food packaging, may look solid, but at the molecular level, tiny gas molecules can still sneak through. That’s why potato chips go stale and packaged food loses its crispness.  
Now, a collaboration between researchers at Boston University’s College of Engineering, MIT, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Massachusetts and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, has overturned that assumption. In a study published today in Nature, the team reports the discovery of the first polymer that is molecularly impermeable; a man-made material that acts as a perfect barrier to gas molecules.

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David Bishop wins prestigious prize for his contributions to understanding superfluids

David Bishop was awarded the 2026 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize on November 5, 2025, for groundbreaking experiments that uncovered the role of vortices in the superfluid phase transition in helium films and observed anyonic braiding statistics of quasiparticles in the fractional quantum Hall effect, thus establishing the significance of topological excitations in two-dimensions.

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Self-Driving Lab to Accelerate the Breakdown of Toxic Chemicals

A new federally funded research effort is tackling one of chemistry’s most complex challenges, safely breaking down toxic industrial chemicals. Keith Brown (ME, MSE, Physics)(PI) and James Chapman (ME, MSE)(co-PI) in collaboration with Xi Ling (Chemistry, MSE) are bringing together robotics, artificial intelligence, and materials science to find a solution. The project is supported by […]