A Hard Little Lesson: Squeezed nanospheres grow superstrong
By Peter Weiss
Small is different. That’s a fact of life for scientists studying virus-size chunks of matter called nanoparticles.
Now, the first-ever experimental determinations of the hardness of individual silicon nanospheres reveal just how different mechanical properties can be. The nanospheres are up to four times as hard as bulk silicon, such as the silicon wafers from which computer chips are made, report William W. Gerberich of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and his coworkers in the June Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids. The diameter of the spheres ranged from 40 to 100 nanometers.