News Release

"The Cliff of the Two-Dimensional World" earned "People's Choice" distinction in the NSF's Visualization Challenge.

A photograph submitted by a group of Drexel engineers has won recognition by the National Science Foundation as part of its International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. The picture entitled “The Cliff of the Two-Dimensional World,” which resembles a red-rock bluff, depicts ultrathin layers of titanium-based compounds as viewed under an electron microscope.

The group’s image was dubbed the “People’s Choice” winner in the visualization challenge, as it garnered popular support from online voters.

The layers depicted in the image, which the researchers have named MXenes, are thin enough to be considered two-dimensional. In scientific application, MXenes can be used to produce energy storage devices, sensors, solar cells among other applications.

Drexel’s group, which comprises doctoral students Babak Anasori and Michael Naguib and Dr. Yury Gogotsi and Dr. Michel Barsoum, hails from the Materials Science and Engineering Department.