Birthing a new breed of materials

Where two different materials meet on the atomic level, a new material can be born that is neither one nor the other. The two parent materials do not mix - they remain distinct from one another - but their marriage begets a strange child with properties unlike those of either parent. These so-called interfacial materials are considered to be a breed of materials in their own right, and, thanks to recent technological advances that allow them to be fabricated in the laboratory, their real-world p...