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Structured nanoscale metallic glass fibers

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A collaboration between researchers at EPF Lausanne and the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology has shown that thermal drawing of metallic glasses in a polymer matrix generates conducting fibers with arbitrary transverse geometries, micro- and nanoscale feature sizes, and extreme aspect ratios. These fibers will have unique applications in flexible electronics and neuroscience. The results are presented in Nature Nanotechnology.

Schematic of a preform assembly for fabrication of metallic glass fibers used in neural stimulation and recording.
Schematic of a preform assembly for fabrication of metallic glass fibers used in neural stimulation and recording.

Micro- and nanoscale metallic glasses (MGs) offer exciting opportunities in science and technology and have potential applications in micro-engineering, healthcare, microelectronic devices and optics. Thus far, however, the generation of such structured micro- and nanoscale MG fibers has been underexploited due to various scientific and technological challenges, which involve process-induced deformation and size effects that influence the crystallization kinetics and flow behavior of the MG-forming alloy.


In the framework of a collaborative study conducted by various research groups at EPF Lausanne and the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT), the authors of the Nature Nanotechnology article report on a scalable approach for producing micro- and nanoscale MGs in a flexible polymer fiber, based on thermal co-drawing of the MG within a polymer matrix of matched rheological properties. The authors demonstrate that the in-fiber electrically conductive MGs produced in this way reveal controllable feature sizes down to a few tens of nanometers and aspect ratios greater than 1010, predisposing them for versatile applications in optoelectronics, smart textiles and neuroscience. One of the latter applications is an implantable MG-based fiber probe that has already been tested in vivo for deployment as a stable brain-machine interface. By deploying the structured nanoscale MGs described, the authors have also been able to determine fundamental properties such as size-dependent flow and size-dependent crystallization at the nanoscale.

 

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