Silicon nanospheres -- extreme hardness at nanoscale measurements.

Source:
National Science Foundation
Date:
2003-03-21


New Measurements Show Silicon Nanospheres Rank Among Hardest Known Materials
ARLINGTON, Va. -- University of Minnesota researchers have made the first-ever hardness measurements on individual silicon nanospheres and shown that the nanospheres' hardness falls between the conventional hardness of sapphire and diamond, which are among the hardest known materials. Being able to measure such nanoparticle properties may eventually help scientists design low-cost superhard materials from these nanoscale building blocks.

Up to four times harder than typical silicon--a principal ingredient of computer chips, glass and sand--the nanospheres demonstrate that other materials at the nanoscale, including sapphire, may also have vastly improved mechanical properties. The researchers' results were published online March 18 by the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and will appear in June 2003 issue. The work is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the independent federal agency that supports basic research in all fields of science and engineering.


www.sciencedaily.com...

I can see Presidents & other dignataries will start to have their limos outfitted with tougher armored windows...And after being used for that & military applications, it should eventually filter down to the civilian markets, including sheild-windows for bank tellers.

I remember seeing Newt Greenwhich(sp?) of all people speaking about nano-tech in... I want to say 1999-2000

he had a metal tube that was supposedly stronger than a 3 inch thick piece of steel, yet it looked as thin as a drinking straw.


I await the future.

whats the weight like, imagine body armour made from this stuff...

SOOOOOOoooooo,

We have here a nanoparticle that is extremely strong, and from that we are going to build the strongest materials in existence..., right!

We scientists(i'm one of those lying bastard) are always saying stuff like this, we have a special extension in our word processors called "Insert relevancy bull# here" where we by making ludicrous assumption try to sell our newest pieces of research.

So let's think this through: We have here our nanoparticles. All silicon atoms inside such a nanoparticle have their electrons bound, so you can't bind anything through a chemical bond. Probably also such a nanoparticle has no dipole moment. So what remains to bind one nanoparticle to another? Van der Waals forces. So making a hard material from these very hard balls is going to be impossible since you break the inter-nanoparticle bonds so easily. So screw them, I've just toasted that idea, here let me really do it :

They should learn to go slow on their "relevancy button".

www.iec.org...

Heres a simple link to nanotech, this isn't news to me really. I've seen nanotech, dupont has some neat stuff.