14 DAY TRIAL // A recent paper in the journal Nature Materials documents a rather peculiar find. Long story short, scientists claim to have discovered particles that look like liquid droplets on the outside but that have a perfectly stable core.
The particles described in this paper are pure silver ones and measure less than 10 nanometers across. As explained by the MIT scientists who studied them, this means that they are 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.
The MIT specialists behind this research project explain that, while studying these particles, they found their exterior to be rather wobbly and to constantly change shape. By comparison, their interior remained stable at all times.
Interestingly enough, the wobbliness characteristic of liquid droplets was only documented in the nanoparticles' outermost layers, which were found to forever move and assume new shapes.
“The interior is crystalline, so the only mobile atoms are the first one or two layers,” scientist Ju Li said in a statement. “Everywhere except the first two layers is crystalline,” the specialist went on to explain the outcome of this investigation.
It is understood that, despite the fact that this MIT investigation focused on pure silver nanoparticles alone, researchers expect that their findings hold true in the case of many other metals as well.
Word has it that, following this discovery, several industries might want to rethink their working agenda. “The discovery of these deformations reveals a potentially serious barrier to many such applications,” scientists say.
“For example, if gold or silver nanoligaments are used in electronic circuits, these deformations could quickly cause electrical connections to fail,” they add.