Recently at Caltech they have started looking at solids on a Nano-metric scale to create a super solid. This solid needs to be strong, unbreakable, and very lightweight to be the best that it can be. To do this, Julia Greer and her colleagues have been using 3D imaging with high intensity lasers to create a porous solid that fills all these criteria. To print any structure of this level a laser is used to harden a polymer and create the desired latticework. After creating this framework, almost any material can coat the structure- element, alloy, etc. The current goal was to make a super ceramic, objects like brick or chalk, to see how much pressure it can withstand. After numerous experiments, they discovered that, when coated in aluminum oxide, the framework could withstand up to 85% compression and still pop back into shape. With the huge success of this small sample the possibilities could be endless since anything can be draped on the structure; optics, energy efficiency, or biomedicine.
Submitted by Parker Brarens
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