Clay Klein has been announced as the 2025 recipient of the $10,000 Nick Cobb Memorial Scholarship by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, and Siemens EDA — formally Mentor, a Siemens company — for potential contributions to advanced lithography or a related field. Klein will also be honored during 2025’s SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning conference.

The annual Nick Cobb scholarship recognizes an exemplary graduate student working in the field of lithography for semiconductor manufacturing. The award honors the memory of Nick Cobb, who was an SPIE Senior Member and chief engineer at Mentor. His groundbreaking contributions enabled optical and process proximity correction for integrated circuit manufacturing. Originally funded for three years for the period ending in 2021, the Nick Cobb Memorial Scholarship partnership has been extended and is now scheduled to be awarded through 2027.

Water droplets under freezing conditions do not spontaneously detach from surfaces as they do at room temperature due to stronger droplet-surface interaction and lack of an energy transformation pathway. Since accumulated droplets or ice have to be removed manually or with mechanical equipment, which is costly and inefficient, preventing droplet accretion on surfaces is both scientifically intriguing and practically important. Researchers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) have invented a ground-breaking self-powered mechanism of freezing droplet ejection that allows droplets to shoot themselves away, paving the way for cost-efficient and promising technological applications.

A new University of Houston study of hemp microbes may lead to more sustainable farming methods, using nature to boost the growth of the plant which has become increasingly popular for its versatile uses: CBD-rich varieties are in high demand for pharmaceutical products, while fiber-rich varieties are valued for industrial applications like textiles. 

Marie Boër, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and bridged faculty member at the Jefferson Lab, is expected to generate new foundational knowledge in the field of hadronic physics with her current research.

The air over urban sites have much more complex chemical composition than we think. The complexity arises from the presence of air-suspended solid or liquid particles and other organic or inorganic pollutants that interact with each other under solar radiation. These processes make the Earth’s lower atmosphere a real “toxic cocktail” that shape our lives and well-being at places we dwell in. The recent research demonstrated by researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences in collaboration with foreign partners explains the effect of biomass burning products, namely 4-nitro­catechol and levoglucosan on the behavior of epithelial human lung cells that are the first barrier between the bloodstream and harmful compounds that are present in the air. This work emphasizes the urgent need to extend air quality networks across the European Union by monitoring the concentrations of key biomass burning markers (i.e., 4-nitrocatechol and levoglucosan) in PM_2.5 aerosol. Why? The research firmly proved their cytotoxic nature and capacity to severely demolish mitochondrial regions of human lung cells.