Tacc Podcasts

The Supersized Science podcast features research and discoveries nationwide enabled by advanced computing technology and expertise at the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. Jorge Salazar, a science writer at TACC, hosts the podcast. A new leaf has turned in scientists' hunt for developing cutting-edge materials used in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV's, touchscreens, and more. The advance involves the polaron, a quasiparticle consisting of an electron and its surrounding distortions of atoms in a crystal lattice. Simulations on the Texas Advanced Computing Center's Frontera supercomputer have helped scientists map for the first time the conditions that characterize polarons in 2D materials, the thinnest materials that have ever been made. Understanding polarons can help improve the performance and efficiency of devices such as touchscreens for phones and tablets, and the organic light-emitting diodes of OLED TVs, which rely on electric charge transport through pola