Material Science : Boon for device miniaturization

Saturday, June 16, 2012

We have every resources, dexterity and efficacy to find solution to everyday problem with the advancement of technologies. Varied intelligent and innovative technologies along with fully automated machines which can perform tasks or can even attain feats which humans are incapable of are commendable.



People are happy using them during their everyday chores and in other difficult tasks. Essentially a piece of tech device encapsulates different combination of identical parts with unique properties that makes an idempotent product. But it seldom happens that we push ourselves to artificially fabricate or find out a single piece of material (continuous body) whose characteristics matches almost with the required product features. A single natural or synthetic piece of body that has those features already installed in it.

Although envision of such a feature packed material is vague at what resources and technologies we have. Nano technologist and biologist are already in search of such synthetic material to imitate motions which are fundamental aspects of a device. The operation of such device is accompanied by a sequence of complex tasks. The more complex task a device does the task of fabricating and analyzing the same gets more cryptic. Therefore it is expedient to make a complex system simple by replacing a bunch of mesh, circuit and sensors with a single piece of material.

The most advantageous thing of using a continuous body is that properties become intensive .Even if the physical property varies with direction or to some degree mathematical expressions and simulations of the same can be done easily. This precludes a detailed study of all components that is required to make it. For devices which replicates a system of different electronic devices the error attributed to every parts gets added, which entails a total constant error.

To perceive the idea, consider a flat piece of material that can be bended easily and can change its body colour with some other parameter variation.

A combination of them gives us a flexible screen, which has already been commercialized as an ebook reader and newspaper reader.(you can google it).
I found these videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmi48ilBq7k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_ADCTBKVE


Although I don’t know about the exact status of commercializing it but it seems plausible with the recent advancement in metal composite technologies. Such displayable objects are essentially a single piece of material with the required features.

The composite material which are synthesized in laboratory acts like sensors which can respond to some external input (like voltage ).An example of the same is Ionic Polymer Metal Composite (IPMC).The composite has an innate capability of responding to voltage differences with slight movement/motion.

Hence the motion imitated by the composite can replicate a similar actuator with complex connections between two or more parts.
For example :--

A motor connected to an arm would generate the same motion. Although technically speaking this system is more robust than the sensor one. But keeping those extra details (like power input , moment , etc) aside the simplicity and imitation of the metal composite is quite appreciating.
Let me share one more piece of info which I got while skimming an ebook on ancient secret technologies.
"In 2005 Professors Victor Podolskiy and Evgenii Narimanov and graduate student Leonid Alekseyev, working at Oregon State University and Princeton University, respectively, announced their discovery that a thin layer of monocrystalline bismuth exhibited a negative index of refraction at microwave frequencies,making it only known, naturally occurring substance to exhibit such a property.They sandwiched a 4.5-micron-thick layer of monocrystalline bismuth between two metal plates,as shown in figure."

The composite will act as microwave obstruction or arrester for a particular range of microwave frequencies.

Similarly a wide range of different stripes of materials can be combined to form bodies of various featured composites.

Science and technologies are back bone to these kinds of new findings. One by one it has gifted us those which we previously thought to be mythical. Flying machines like helicopters and aeroplanes , submarines, space travel and many other vague ideas as mentioned in early literature and whose instances are even found in ancient arts are no more myths .

The nano technology and material science of science of metal composites are taking larger leaps to a more advanced world. This augurs that more refined ideas on inventing newer composite bodies are yet to come , which can replace complex systems with single composite bodies.

I am not an avid lover of material science nor that I am a student of Material Science.I only wanted to share my point of view of replacing complex systems with a tantamount body.
:)
- Soham



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