Nanoparticle Fabrication Used for Superalloys
Radioactivity can be used to break large chunks of matter down into nanoparticles in a process called radiolysis. The image at left shows tiny gold nanoparticles, only 30 nm in size, produced using this process. At Sandia Labs, radiolysis is performed regularly, and the resulting nanoparticles can be mixed together to create extremely pure alloys, whose material properties can then be studied in detail.
Posted June 14th, 2007 in Materials.