With all the publications touting new materials or the\ncreation of new properties of materials, it is often difficult to identify\ndisparate findings into something that could combine into very useful\ndevices. We will consider two findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A team of scientists\nfrom the University of Vermont. Lawrence Livermore National Labs and other Labs\ndeveloped a form of silver with enhanced strength. [Ref. 1] They found a new nanoscale mechanism\nthat enable improving metal strength without reducing electrical\nconductivity. Currently, in order to\nimprove strength related properties like reducing brittleness or softening,\nvarious alloys are employed to make the materials stronger. This improvement has led to a decrease in\nelectrical conductivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Starting with the fact that as grains of material get\nsmaller, they get stronger. When the\nsize becomes less than tens of nanometers wide, the boundaries between grains\nbecome unstable and can move. One\napproach to improving the strength in metals like silver is to create a special\ntype of grain boundaries known as coherent twin boundaries. These boundaries are very strong but\ndeteriorates when the size is less than a few nanometers due to imperfections\nin the lattice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The researchers have developed an approach to create a\n\u201cnanocrystalline-nanotwinned metal. \nEmploying a small amount of copper atoms, which are slighter smaller\nthan silver atoms, to move into defects in both grain and twin boundaries. This has created a super strong form on\nsliver with the conductivity of silver retained. It appears that the copper atoms move into\nthe interface and not into the main part of the silver structure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This effort overcomes softening previous observed as the\ngrains get to small, which is called the Hall-Petch breakdown. The researchers a confident that their\nfindings can be applied to other materials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
+<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Researchers at the University of Porto (Portugal) found a\nnegative thermal expansion (NTE) effect in Gd5<\/sub>Si1.3<\/sub>Ge2.7<\/sub>\nmagnetic nano granules. [Ref. 2] Most material expand (Positive Thermal\nExpansion \u2013 PTE) when heated and contract when cooled. This material is part of a family of\nmaterials that has important implications in the development of future devices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Work in materials like glass has been developing glass that\nhas Low Expansion Coefficients for more than 50 years. This type of precision in glass is required\nto manufacture the very high-resolution optical telescopes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The ability to create materials that combine both positive\nexpansion and negative expansion to electronics would enable the development of\nmore robust material inter-connections (contacts) that can withstand the rigors\nof wide temperature extremes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n +<\/p>\n\n\n\n Why are these findings important? Currently, efforts are being made to create\nlonger lasting electronics. Material\nfatigue and power consumption are two major concerns. What electronics are available that will be\nfunctioning 100 years from today? Excluding\nthe obsolescence factor, there is nothing that will be working as\ndesigned. The current exploration\nconversations are about considering project to both the Moon and Mars. There are space probes that have been\nfunctioning for tens of years. Other\nprobes stop functioning \u201cmysteriously\u201d. \nMultiple redundancy provides a partial work-around. But, how much redundancy is allowable when\nthe \u201cmission\u201d is weight limited. There\nare no manufacturing facilities on places that are being considered for human\nexploration. The ability to manufacture\ndevices are better able to withstand temperature extremes, use power more\nefficiently, and remain operations for longer periods of time are needed. The research mentioned above is not the\nanswer, but may be the first steps to a solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n References:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With all the publications touting new materials or the creation of new properties of materials, it is often difficult to identify disparate findings into something that could combine [..]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nano"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nano-blog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}