Materials & Manufacturing

Who's Who: Materials

Dr. William (Bill) Farrell, Scientist, Lunar Exploration Program

Dr. William Farrell, a scientist with the Lunar Exploration Program at Goddard Space Flight Center, is an expert on the problem of lunar dust and its effects on astronauts and...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Fabrication of Gate-Electrode Integrated Carbon-Nanotube Bundle Field Emitters

A continuing effort to develop carbon- nanotube-based field emitters (cold cathodes) as high-current-density electron sources has yielded an optimized device...

Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Eye On Innovation

By Dr. Udo Ungeheuer
Chairman of the Board
of Management
SCHOTT
Mainz, Germany

Many people consider the printing press developed here in Mainz, Germany, near the headquarters of SCHOTT, the...

Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Safety & Security Category Winner, "Create the Future" 2007 Design Contest

Personnel Beacon/Locator for Mine Workers Joseph Hollmann
Spectral Biopsy
Kansas City, MO

When trapped, miners are instructed to create noise by...

Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Contest Sponsors, "Create the Future" 2007 Design Contest

Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Grand Prize Winner, "Create the Future" 2007 Design Contest

Litroenergy™, a New Light Source Material Steve Stark
MPK Co.
Champlin, MN

A patent-pending light source material, Litroenergy™ contains self-luminous micro...

Articles: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Consumer Products Category Winner, "Create the Future" 2007 Design Contest

LED Cocoon Tent Stephen Boynton Orem, UT

Outdoor camping tents have used the zipper as the solution to opening and closing the tent since the zipper was...

Briefs: Materials

Gas Sensors Based on Coated and Doped Carbon Nanotubes

Efforts are underway to develop inexpensive, low-power electronic sensors, based on single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), for measuring part-per-million and part-per-billion of...

Briefs: Materials

Photochemically Synthesized Polyimides

An alternative to the conventional approach to synthesis of polyimides involves the use of single monomers that are amenable to photopolymerization. Heretofore, the synthesis of polyimides has involved...

Briefs: Materials

Hydroxide-Assisted Bonding of Ultra-Low-Expansion Glass

A process for hydroxide-assisted bonding has been developed as a means of joining optical components made of ultra-low-expansion (ULE) glass, while maintaining sufficiently precise...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Ski Binding Prototype Designed and Tested with FEA Software

G3 Genuine Guide Gear (G3) of North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, is a specialized manufacturer of backcountry ski and safety equipment — including telemark bindings and...

Briefs: Materials

LiCoPO₄ Cathode Layers for Thin-Film Batteries

LiCoPO₄ has been found to be a promising active cathode material for high-energy-density, thin-film, rechargeable electrochemical power cells. The potential of the charge/discharge...

Briefs: Materials

High-Temperature SMAs for Actuator Applications

Work output is comparable to conventional SMA alloys but with transition temperatures significantly exceeding those of conventional materials.

Compositions and production processes have...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Vacuum Packaging of MEMS With Multiple Internal Seal Rings

A proposed method of design and fabrication of vacuum-packaged microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and of individual microelectromechanical devices involves the use of multiple...

Articles: Materials

NASA-Inspired Shape-Sensing Fibers Enable Minimally Invasive Surgery

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a new class of surgical procedures in which the operation is performed with surgical instruments inserted through small incisions in the...

Briefs: Materials

Low-Pt-Content Anode Catalyst for Direct Methanol Fuel Cells

Combinatorial experiments have led to the discovery that a nanophase alloy of Pt, Ru, Ni, and Zr is effective as an anode catalyst material for direct methanol fuel cells. This...

Briefs: Materials

Atomized BaF₂-CaF₂ for Better-Flowing Plasma-Spray Feedstock

Atomization of a molten mixture of BaF₂ and CaF₂ has been found to be superior to crushing of bulk solid BaF₂- CaF₂ as a means of...

Briefs: Materials

Nanophase Nickel-Zirconium Alloys for Fuel Cells

Nanophase nickel- zirconium alloys have been investigated for use as electrically conductive coatings and catalyst supports in fuel cells. Heretofore, noble metals have been used because they...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Patterning of Indium Tin Oxide Films

A relatively rapid, economical process has been devised for patterning a thin film of indium tin oxide (ITO) that has been deposited on a polyester film. ITO is a transparent, electrically conductive...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

Gimballed Shoulders for Friction Stir Welding

In a proposed improvement of tooling for friction stir welding, gimballed shoulders would supplant shoulders that, heretofore, have been fixedly aligned with pins. The proposal is especially...

Briefs: Materials

SiO₂/TiO₂ Composite for Removing Hg From Combustion Exhaust

Pellets made of a high-surface-area composite of silica and titania have shown promise as means of removing elemental mercury from flue gases. With further technical development...

Briefs: Materials

Bonding by Hydroxide-Catalyzed Hydration and Dehydration

A simple, inexpensive method for bonding solid objects exploits hydroxidecatalyzed hydration and dehydration to form silicatelike networks in thin surface and interfacial layers...