MIT/LLNL develops new materials that are 10,000 times lighter than aerogels

Just imagine, if there is a material that is strong enough to be used to build an airplane or car, but its weight is as light as air, is it a sci-fi feeling? But it will not be long before this kind of thing may come true! Because a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has created a new type of ultra-lightweight material - it is as light as aerogel, but its strength is stronger than it 10000 times! Perhaps one day in the future, aerospace and automotive design will undergo radical changes.

Lawrence Livermore engineer "Yayne" (Zheng Xiaoyu) is looking at miniature models of crystal units that make up an ultra-lightweight, ultra-hard material.

LLNL research team and its sample microstructure.

"Aerogel" (also known as "frozen smoke").

Aerogels have an incredible weight, and the current lightest record holder is only 0.16 milligrams of "aerographene" per square centimeter. In addition to insulation, rackets, and control of oil spills, NASA will also use it to insulate the Stardust mission samples collected from the comet's tail.

The new materials developed by the MIT/LNLL team are not aerogels, but metamaterials. Although it is man-made, it can find its footprint in nature.

The researchers' idea is to create aerogel-like "lightweight" weights, but with much greater strength. Therefore, the new material's strength actually comes from its own geometry rather than the chemical material itself.

As for the preparation of new materials, it is achieved through "projection micro-stereolithography" technology - this is a kind of desktop 3D printing, but it acts on the micro level so that people can quickly create heights. Complex three-dimensional microstructure layer prototype.

Although microlithographic microlithography is very small, the process is much like making trusses and beams. In the process, the materials used can actually be switched. The research team stated that they can use many different materials, including polymers, metals and ceramics.

Initially, the LLNL/MIT team produced a 200- to 500-nanometer-thick metal film layer, then melted the polymer matrix template and finally left the metal film tube in shape.

Subsequently, the team used the same method to replace the metal with ceramics and produced a ceramic tube structure about 50 nanometers thick. The density of this material is similar to that of traditional aerogels, but its strength is 4 orders of magnitude higher than the latter.

Next, the team also created a "ceramic-polymer" hybrid (into the polymer embedded nano-ceramic particles). However, the process is slightly different, that is, by heating out of the polymer, so that the ceramic particles become a dense solid.

LLNL engineer "Rayne" (Zheng Xiaoyu) said: "These lightweight materials can withstand at least 160,000 times their own load."

In the not-too-distant future, this discretion is expected to apply to aircraft parts, automobiles and aerospace, and the final strength may be 100 times stronger than the laboratory version.

Related research results have been published in the journal Science.