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A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5
1 4 EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
NEW FIBERS COULD ENABLE
MORPHING AIRCRAFT
An international research team
based at The University of Texas at Dal-
las created electrically conducting fi-
bers that can be reversibly stretched to
more than 14 times their initial length
and whose electrical conductivity in-
creases 200-fold when stretched. The
team is using the fibers to make arti-
ficial muscles, as well as capacitors
whose energy storage capacity increas-
es about tenfold when stretched. These
new fibers and cables might one day be
used as interconnects for superelastic
electronic circuits, far-reaching robots
and exoskeletons, morphing aircraft,
and super-stretchy charger cords for
electronic devices.
Fibers were constructed by wrap-
ping lighter-than-air, electrically con-
ductive sheets of tiny carbon nano-
tubes to form a jelly-roll-like sheath
around a long rubber core. The fibers
differ from conventional materials in
several ways. For example, when con-
ventional fibers are stretched, the re-
sulting increase in length and decrease
in cross-sectional area restricts the flow
of electrons through the material. But
even a “giant” stretch of the new con-
ducting sheath-core fibers causes little
change in their electrical resistance,
says Ray Baughman, director of the
NanoTech Institute at UT Dallas. Key
to the performance of the new fibers
is the introduction of buckling into the
carbon nanotube sheets. Because the
rubber core is stretched along its length
as the sheets are being wrapped around
it, when the wrapped rubber relaxes,
the carbon nanofibers form a complex
buckled structure, which allows for re-
peated stretching.
QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY GETS
A BOOST FROM MICROWAVES
Scientists at the University of
Sussex, UK, discovered a way to use
everyday technology found in kitchen
microwaves and mobile telephones to
bring quantum physics closer to help-
ing solve enormous scientific problems
that themost powerful supercomputers
can’t even think about. A team led by
Professor Winfried Hensinger froze sin-
gle charged atoms to within a millionth
of a degree of absolute zero with the
help of microwave radiation. This tech-
nique will simplify the construction of
quantum technology devices including
powerful quantum sensors, ultra-fast
quantum computers, and ultra-stable
quantum clocks. Quantum technol-
ogies make use of highly strange and
UT Dallas scientists constructed nov-
el fibers by wrapping sheets of tiny
carbon nanotubes to form a sheath
around a long rubber core.
Winfried Hensinger (right) and Seb Weidt
freeze individual atoms using micro-
waves. Courtesy of University of Sussex.
BRIEF
Wichita State University’s National Institute for Aviation Research, Kansas,
and Dassault Systemes, Waltham, Mass., will partner to create an advanced
manufacturing center on campus. The 3DExperience Center, which will be
located in the Experiential Engineering Building when it opens late next year,
will focus on enabling advanced product development and manufacturing of
next-generation materials and technologies. .
Parts of the 3DExperience Center are already coming together in a
temporary home at the National Center for Aviation Training.
counterintuitive phenomena predicted
by the theory of quantum physics.
“The use of long-wavelength ra-
diation instead of laser technology to
cool ions can tremendously simplify
the construction of practical quan-
tum technology devices enabling us
to build real devices much faster,”
says Hensinger. Quantum technologies
could revolutionize the understanding
of science, such as solving the origin of
the universe. Freezing atoms puts them
into the lowest possible energy and is a
step toward harnessing the strange ef-
fects of quantum physics, which allow
objects to exist in different states at the
same time. “Besides finding an easy
way to create atoms with zero-point
energy, we have also managed to put
the atom into a highly counterintuitive
state—where it is both moving and not
moving at the same time,” explains
Hensinger.