Heat Cloak. A series of concentric rings lets heat propagating from left to right across a metallic sheet flow more readily around a thermally isolated disk than toward its center, leaving no sign of the disk in the temperature distribution on the right side. The colors represent temperatures measured with an infrared camera and are superimposed on a photo of the structure before the rubbery insulating material was added to the holes and gaps. The white lines connect points at the same temperature.

Credit R. Schittny/Karlsruhe Inst. of Tech.

Source: Invisibility Cloak for Heat (American Physical Society)

A lattice composed of columns of squares that represent repeating molecular structures, one rotated clockwise (colored blue) and another counterclockwise (colored orange) with respect to each other. (…) Such new symmetries also arise in helical structures such as DNA, proteins, and sugar crystals. These new symmetries lead to the prediction of new properties of these crystals that relate to these rotations, called “roto properties.” Applications range from the discovery of materials that allow electrical control of magnetism to new insights into well-known crystals such as quartz and organic crystals.

Credit: Penn State University, Gopalan lab, Ryan Haislmaier.

Source: Search for Advanced Materials Aided by Discovery of Hidden Symmetries in Nature, Penn State SCIENCE.

Female Nephila clavipes on her web. The web was characterized using Brillouin spectroscopy to directly and non-invasively determine the mechanical properties. 

Credit: Jeffery Yarger

Source: ASU scientists unravel the mysteries of spider silk, asu news (Arizona State University)

These fluffy snowflakes, known as aggregates, form when snow crystals collide with other snow crystals. Many of these flakes also show some riming, or an icy coating. A new high-speed, three-camera system developed at the University of Utah made these pictures as the snowflakes fell.

Credit: Tim Garrett, University of Utah

Source: New high-speed camera system reveals what snow looks like in midair, Phys.Org

Colorized image of the fresh Carbonyl Iron sample.

Source: Characterizing Metal Oxide Coated Carbonyl Iron Particles using Microscopic Techniques, The Institute of Optics (School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at The University of Rochester).

Nitrogen-vacancy center in Silicon Carbide, a promising candidate for use as a qubit in a quantum computer.

Source: Defects for quantum computing, Van de Walle Computational Materials Research Group, at the University of California, Santa Barbara.