A new material that doesn’t just rival the strength of diamonds and graphene, but boasts a yield strength 10 times greater than Kevlar, renowned for its use in bulletproof vests.
Researchers at Delft University of Technology, led by assistant professor Richard Norte, have unveiled a remarkable new material with the potential to impact the world of material science: amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC).
Beyond its exceptional strength, this material demonstrates mechanical properties crucial for vibration isolation on a microchip. Amorphous silicon carbide is therefore particularly suitable for making ultra-sensitive microchip sensors.
The range of potential applications is vast. From ultra-sensitive microchip sensors and advanced solar cells to pioneering space exploration and DNA sequencing technologies. The advantages of this material’s strength combined with its scalability make it exceptionally promising. READ MORE...
Numerous scientists aspire to unlock the remarkable capability of spiders to spin silk threads that are immensely strong, lightweight, and flexible. In fact, pound for pound, spider silk is stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar. However, no one has been able to replicate the spiders’ work yet.
If we ever manage to develop a synthetic equivalent with these characteristics, a whole new world of possibilities may open: Artificial spider silk could replace materials like Kevlar, polyester, and carbon fiber in industries and be used, for example, to make lightweight and flexible bulletproof vests.
Postdoc and biophysicist Irina Iachina from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark (SDU), is involved in this race to uncover the recipe for super silk.
She has been fascinated by spider silk since her time as a master’s student at SDU, and currently, she is researching the topic at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston with support from the Villum Foundation.
As part of her research, she is collaborating with associate professor and biophysicist Jonathan Brewer at SDU, who is an expert in using various types of microscopes to peer into biological structures.
Together, they have now, for the first time, studied the internal parts of spider silk using an optical microscope without cutting or opening the silk in any way. This work has now been published in the journals Scientific Reports and Scanning.
“We have used several advanced microscopy techniques, and we have also developed a new kind of optical microscope that allows us to look all the way into a piece of fiber and see what’s inside,” explains Jonathan Brewer. READ MORE...
