Materials & Manufacturing

Materials & Coatings

Access the technical resources for a range of materials and coatings. Design engineers can browse news, technical briefs, and applications for plastics, composites, rubbers, elastomers, and metals.

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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Conductive, High-Toughness Oxides Deposited by Plasma Spray-Physical Vapor Deposition (PS-PVD)
Oxide coatings deposited in Glenn Research Center's Plasma Spray-Physical Vapor Deposition (PS-PVD) facility can be processed to be mechanically tough (erosion-resistant) and electrically conductive at room temperature. The electrically conductive phase...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Optical Method for Detecting Displacements and Strains at Ultra-High Temperatures During Thermo-Mechanical Testing
NASA's Langley Research Center has developed an optical method for detecting displacements and strains at ultra-high temperatures during thermo-mechanical testing. This innovation will provide displacement and strain measurements in...
Briefs: Energy
Superalloy Surface Treatment for Improved Performance of Power Turbines
To produce power more efficiently and cleanly, the next generation of power turbines will have to operate at extreme temperatures and pressures. Currently, single-crystal, nickel-based superalloys are used in such extreme environments. MCrAlY coatings (where M = Co, Ni, or...
Q&A: Energy
Using flexible conducting polymers and novel circuitry patterns printed on paper, researchers in Dr. Yee’s laboratory have demonstrated proof-of-concept...
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Briefs: Aerospace
Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a solid-state humidity sensing element that offers ultra-high sensitivity across a wide range of humidity levels. The sensing element is...
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Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Conductive thread — embroidery thread that can carry an electrical current — often is combined with other types of electronics to create fabric that lights up or communicates. This thread...
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Briefs: Motion Control
Using 3D printers, researchers have created a metamaterial from cubic building blocks that responds to compression forces by a rotation. Usually, this can only be...
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INSIDER: Photonics/Optics
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory have developed germanium nanoparticles with improved photoluminescence, making them potentially better materials for...
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INSIDER: Materials
A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has for the first time observed nanoscale changes deep inside hybrid perovskite crystals that...
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Blog: Manufacturing & Prototyping
ORNL staff scientist Adam Rondinone explains how his team made the tiny toy.
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Q&A: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Dr. Ahmed and scientists from NIST and American University are researching the use of metal organic frameworks (MOFs)...
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Briefs: Materials
Electromagnetic Metamaterial with Wide Angular and Broadband Spectral Absorption
Propagation in a waveguide requires proper termination of signals to prevent reflections from interfering with the desired circuit functionality. Conventional termination designs for a two-dimensional planar waveguide topology provide maximum signal suppression in the...
Briefs: Materials
In order to store information in the conventional magnetic memories of electronic devices, the material’s small magnetic domains are oriented “up” or “down” by using externally...
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Briefs: Materials
NASA Langley Research Center has developed fluorinated alkyl ether-containing epoxies designed as an anti-insect coating. The robust and durable coating was developed to...
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Briefs: Materials
Researchers at NASA have developed new methods to manufacture carbon materials (e.g., nanotubes, graphene) with holes through the graphitic surface of the particles. The...
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Briefs: Materials
Superconducting materials are technologically important because electricity flows through them without resistance. Only low-temperature superconductivity seemed possible before 1986,...
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Articles: Sensors/Data Acquisition
This column presents technologies that have applications in commercial areas, possibly creating the products of tomorrow. To learn more about each technology, see the contact information provided for that innovation.
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Briefs: Materials
A light foam was created from two-dimensional sheets of hexagonal-boron nitride (h-BN) that absorbs carbon dioxide. Freeze-drying h-BN turned it into a macro-scale foam that disintegrates...
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NASA Spinoff: Materials
Spinoff is NASA’s annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in the fields of health and...
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Briefs: Materials
Inorganic-Organic Hybrid Polymers for High-Temperature Applications
A new class of polymeric materials was developed with resistance to heat, dielectric breakdown, and oxidation at high temperatures. For applications that demand high temperature resistance coupled with greater strength, these polymers can be easily transformed into ceramics with...
Briefs: Materials
Researchers at MIT and several other institutions have developed a method for making photonic devices — similar to electronic devices but based on light rather than electricity —...
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Articles: Materials
Metal additive manufacturing is being embraced as a choice for parts production across many fields — including aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and other industries —...
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Briefs: Materials
Process Turns Carbon Dioxide into 3D Graphene with Microporous Surface
The conversion of carbon dioxide to useful materials usually requires high energy input due to its ultrahigh stability. A heat-releasing reaction between carbon dioxide and sodium was developed to take carbon dioxide and turn it into 3D graphene with micropores across its...
Blog: Imaging
With another year of Tech Briefs almost in the books, it's time to look at our most-read news articles of 2017. Top stories included a look back at the life of Robert Goddard, and a look forward to new...
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INSIDER: Materials
A vortex in the atmosphere can churn with enough power to create a typhoon. But more subtle vortices form constantly in nature. Many of them are too small to be seen with the naked eye....
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Articles: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Proper filtration plays an important role in ensuring that hydraulic systems operate trouble-free. High-performance filters maintain the cleanliness of the hydraulic fluid over its entire service life. In...
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Articles: Motion Control
A team of engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign built a new kind of crawler robot. The wheel-less design takes inspiration from two unconventional sources: origami...
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Briefs: Materials
The slippery state caused by water or oil is called superlubricity — where there is basically no friction on a surface. In graphene, this superlubricity state comes from atomic orbitals that...
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Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
Silicon has several qualities that have led it to become the bedrock of electronics. One is that it features a very good “native” insulator — silicon dioxide, or silicon...
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