Posts tagged "metamaterials"

• Sandia National Laboratories’ unique approach to materials allows temperature-stable circuits →

  

  Sandia National Laboratories researcher Steve Dai jokes that his approach to creating materials whose properties won’t degenerate during temperature swings is a lot like cooking — mixing ingredients and fusing them together in an oven.

  Sandia has developed a unique materials approach to multilayered, ceramic-based, 3-D microelectronics circuits, such as those used in cell phones. The approach compensates for how changes due to temperature fluctuations affect something called the temperature coefficient of resonant frequency, a critical property of materials used in radio and microwave frequency applications. Sandia filed a patent for its new approach last fall. The work was the subject of a recently completed two-year Early Career Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project that focused on understanding why certain materials behave as they do. That knowledge could help manufacturers design and build better products.

  circuits metamaterials materials research Sandia future
  11 months ago reblog like 1 note
• Making microscopic machines using metallic glass →

  Researchers in Ireland have developed a new technology using materials called bulk metallic glasses to produce high-precision molds for making tiny plastic components. The components, with detailed microscopically patterned surfaces could be used in the next generation of computer memory devices and microscale testing kits and chemical reactors.

  In their article published in the latest edition of the open access journal Materials Today, Michael Gilchrist, David Browne and colleagues at University College Dublin explain how bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) were discovered about thirty years ago. These materials are a type of metal alloy, but instead of having a regular, crystalline structure like an everyday metal such as iron or an alloy like bronze, the material’s atoms are arranged haphazardly. This disordered, or amorphous atomic structure is similar to the amorphous structure of the silicon and oxygen atoms in the glass we use for windows and drinking vessels.

  metal materials research metamaterials future glass
  12 months ago reblog like 3 notes
• Metamaterials Step Into the Light →

  

  Scientists in England and Valencia, Spain, have constructed what may be the first practical metamaterial that manipulates visible light. The researchers, who predict it could be used for subpicosecond optical switches and finely controlled laser pulses, reported the results at the March meeting of the American Physical Society. The layered structure of the Valencia team’s material, in contrast to the makeup of earlier visible-light devices, means it can conceivably be built up into a usable, full-size object. However, not everyone is convinced this is possible.

  metamaterials research future
  1 year ago reblog like 4 notes
• Scientists seek new conductors for metamaterials →

  

  Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have designed a method to evaluate different conductors for use in metamaterial structures, which are engineered to exhibit properties not possible in natural materials. The work was reported this month in Nature Photonics.

  metamaterials future research
  1 year ago reblog like 2 notes
• Controlling light at will: Metamaterials will change optics →

  

  Duke University engineers believe that continued advances in creating ever-more exotic and sophisticated human-made materials will greatly improve their ability to control light at will.

  metamaterials future research light Duke
  1 year ago reblog like 8 notes
• Metamaterials Generate Gecko-Like Adhesive Force →

  

  Back in 1871, James Clerk Maxwell predicted that light exerts a force on any surface it hits. This radiation pressure was experimentally discovered some 30 years later and has since emerged as a hugely important force that is now exploited in systems such as solar sails and laser cooling.

  Today, John Zhang and buddies at the University of Southampton in the UK go one better. These guys predict that a far more powerful optical force can exist between a metal or dielectric plate and a metamaterial, a substance with optical properties that have been engineered to control light in specific ways.

  metamaterials future research
  1 year ago reblog like 43 notes