Metal lighter 100 times

Recently, a group of US scientists have successfully developed 100-fold lighter metal.

The research was done by a coalition of scientists from the University of California, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the California Institute of Technology, which has just been published in the journal Science today.

Structure 'microarrays' s new lightweight materials very nicely allowing scientists to create material containing 99.99% air and only 1% solids with nanometer size, micron and mm.

"The trick is to create a network of hollow tubes connected to each other at a thickness less than 1,000 times that of a human hair ," said study author Dr. Tobias Schaedler at the LHR Laboratory.

This structure allows for the unprecedented mechanical performance of a metal, such as the ability to compress in excess of 50%, so that the energy absorption of the material is extremely high.

It can be used in the manufacture of battery electrodes or for the absorption of sound energy, oscillating energy or collision energy.

"This is a revolution in the field of ultra light materials ," said co-author William Carter.