SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Team designs carbon nanostructure stronger than diamonds:
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions have architecturally designed plate-nanolattices—nanometer-sized carbon structures—that are stronger than diamonds as a ratio of strength to density.
In a recent study in Nature Communications, the scientists report success in conceptualizing and fabricating the material, which consists of closely connected, closed-cell plates instead of the cylindrical trusses common in such structures over the past few decades.
"Previous beam-based designs, while of great interest, had not been so efficient in terms of mechanical properties," said corresponding author Jens Bauer, a UCI researcher in mechanical & aerospace engineering. "This new class of plate-nanolattices that we've created is dramatically stronger and stiffer than the best beam-nanolattices."
According to the paper, the team's design has been shown to improve on the average performance of cylindrical beam-based architectures by up to 639 percent in strength and 522 percent in rigidity.
[...] Bauer said the team's achievement rests on a complex 3-D laser printing process called two-photon polymerization direct laser writing. As a laser is focused inside a droplet of an ultraviolet-light-sensitive liquid resin, the material becomes a solid polymer where molecules are simultaneously hit by two photons. By scanning the laser or moving the stage in three dimensions, the technique is able to render periodic arrangements of cells, each consisting of assemblies of plates as thin as 160 nanometers.
One of the group's innovations was to include tiny holes in the plates that could be used to remove excess resin from the finished material. As a final step, the lattices go through pyrolysis, in which they're heated to 900 degrees Celsius in a vacuum for one hour. According to Bauer, the end result is a cube-shaped lattice of glassy carbon that has the highest strength scientists ever thought possible for such a porous material.
Journal Information:
Cameron Crook et al. Plate-nanolattices at the theoretical limit of stiffness and strength, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15434-2
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 14 2020, @07:56PM
That was my first thought too, but it's worth remembering that, at least at the moment, you need a microscope to see the pieces they build.
Much better, for now, to save the space elevator for worlds with lower gravity, so that cables that can actually be built are relatively feasible. For Earth and similar worlds (e.g. Venus, if anyone wants to go there) a PinWheel is a much better approach. For this kind of project you don't want to be stressing the building materials anywhere near their yield point. A failure could have unfortunate consequences.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.