By 
July 6th, 2017
The invented material is so thin that hundreds of layers could fit on the tip of a needle.
Credit: ANU
A new nano material appears promising to shield astronauts from harmful radiation.
Scientists at the Australian National University in Canberra report that the material is so thin that layers could fit on the tip of a needle and could be applied to any surface, including spacesuits.
Ultra-thin film
ANU’s Mohsen Rahmani notes that the material can reflect or transmit light on demand with temperature control, opening the door to technology that protects astronauts in space from harmful radiation.
Associate Professor Andrey Miroshnichenko (left) and Dr. Mohsen Rahmani demonstrate how the nano material can reflect or transmit light on demand with temperature control. Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU
“Our invention has a lot of potential applications, such as protecting astronauts or satellites with an ultra-thin film that can be adjusted to reflect various dangerous ultraviolet or infrared radiation in different environments,” explains Rahmani, an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Research Fellow at the Nonlinear Physics Centre within the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering.
Array of applications
Co-researcher Associate Professor Andrey Miroshnichenko said the invention could be tailored for other light spectrums including visible light, which opens up a whole array of innovations, including architectural and energy saving applications.
The sample here contains hundreds of thousands of nanoparticles that manipulate the incoming light.
Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU
Lei Xu, a co-lead researcher from the Nonlinear Physics Center within the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering points out that achieving cost-efficient and confined temperature control such as local heating is feasible. “Much like your car has a series of parallel resistive wires on the back windscreen to defog the rear view, a similar arrangement could be used with our invention to confine the temperature control to a precise location.”
The research is published in Advanced Functional Materials:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.201700580/abstract
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