Layered material displays strength of ceramic with toughness of metal

Good news! This could be a major breakthrough!

My next coffee mug will never break again! Just kidding!

"Lattice-matching prevents brittleness usually associated with ceramics"

"A new technique allows ceramics to become more ductile without losing their strength. It involves the controlled growth of a metal layer on the ceramic surface, which allows its structure to rearrange under stress rather than failing. The researchers behind the work suggest that the method could allow ceramics to be used in biomedical and aerospace applications for which they are currently ill-suited. ...

In the new work, Chen and her colleagues combined the properties of ceramics and metals by literally combining the two materials. The researchers used mixed aqueous precursors of lanthanum oxide and molybdenum in solution before drying and sintering the resulting gel. The material comprised strongly bonded, lattice-matched layers of metal and ceramic. ..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Ceramics break instead of deforming plastically, which can be partially attributed to their low number of dislocation defects compared with more ductile materials such as metals. Dong et al. show that by carefully choosing a ceramic-metal interface, the dislocation defects generated in the metal during straining can migrate into the ceramic. The result is a dramatic improvement in the tensile properties, suggesting a different way to improve the properties of brittle ceramics. ...

Abstract

The inherent brittleness of ceramics, primarily due to restricted atomic motions from rigid ionic or covalent bonded structures, is a persistent challenge. This characteristic hinders dislocation nucleation in ceramics, thereby impeding the enhancement of plasticity through a dislocation-engineering strategy commonly used in metals. Finding a strategy that continuously generates dislocations within ceramics may enhance plasticity. Here, we propose a “borrowing-dislocations” strategy that uses a tailored interfacial structure with well-ordered bonds. Such an approach enables ceramics to have greatly improved tensile ductility by mobilizing a considerable number of dislocations in ceramic borrowed from metal through the interface, thereby overcoming the challenge associated with direct dislocation nucleation within ceramics. This strategy provides a way to enhance tensile ductility in ceramics."

P.S. I hate when science journals systematically reduce the first names of researchers to their initials!!!! Bad practice!!!!

Science is published by Marxist ideologues of AAAS! I believe, this is also ideologically driven. This article's last author is a female, Kexin Chen (Tsinghua University)! Google Scholar does not even have a profile on her (see screen print below)!!!!

The publisher of her book (Elsevier) does not have a profile on her either!!!!

Layered material displays strength of ceramic with toughness of metal | Research | Chemistry World

Borrowed dislocations for ductility in ceramics (no public access)

Chen’s team report that the glide of partial dislocations in the layered structure relieves stress in the material

Researcher Kexin Chen presumably published also this book

Shrew Brains Shrink During Winter Expand Again After Winter

Amazing stuff! What a life!

"... Instead [of hibernating], according to a study published November 30 in PNAS, in winter, these shrews lose 28 percent of the volume from their somatosensory cortex, which likely helps them conserve energy. ...
Scientists have shown before that red-toothed shrews, which belong to a group separate from the Etruscan shrew, are born and grow to their full body size in a single summer. Then in autumn, they start to shrink all over—in their spine length, skull, brain, bones, organs such as the liver, and body weight—reaching their smallest size in the winter. Somewhere around February, they start to grow again and reach a second size peak as they sexually mature in the spring. Then they reproduce just once, and, shortly after, die. This cycle is known as Dehnel’s phenomenon. ..."

"... Imaging of neural activity revealed reduced suppressive responses to whisker touch during winter, indicating that such cortical adaptation may have synergistic functional and behavioral effects in addition to direct metabolic benefits."

Shrew Brains Shrink During Winter | The Scientist Magazine® The animals kill off around one-quarter of the neurons in their somatosensory cortex, perhaps to save energy, and the cells appear to return the following summer.

Here is the link to the research paper:

Seasonal plasticity in the adult somatosensory cortex