Supermaterial Combines Properties of Metals and Plastics

Researchers at Yale University have developed a material that can be molded as a plastic that bests steel in terms of strength. The bulk material glass (BMG) is composed of randomly arranged atoms—an arrangement is responsible for its unique properties. By contrast, most metals have a homogeneous crystalline structure. Glass, on the other hand, has long molecules that are disordered but are bound rigidly. The novel material costs about the same as high-end steel and can be processed as inexpensively as plastic.

Professor Jan Schroers, who is leading the research, has reported that his team has already use the material to create various complex shapes such as miniature resonators and biomedical implants, which can be molded in less than a minute and offers twice the strength of conventional steel.

"The trick is to avoid friction typically present in other forming techniques," Schroers says. "Blow molding completely eliminates friction, allowing us to create any number of complicated shapes, down to the nanoscale."

Schroers believes the development could lead to a paradigm shift for shaping metals. "The superior properties of BMGs relative to plastics and typical metals, combined with the ease, economy and precision of blow molding, have the potential to impact society just as much as the development of synthetic plastics and their associated processing methods have in the last century."

More information on the bulk material glass research is available from Yale University.

—Brian Buntz