Scientists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, the NASA Langley Research Center, and the National Institute of Aerospace have recently announced the development of a new class of materials. Boron-nitride yarns are threads of interlocking fibers at the nanoscale that hold great promise for creating stronger body armors, and even spacecraft heat shields, among other things. The team used Jefferson Lab's Free-Electron Laser to obtain the new structures, which have been produced in a very stable manner that opens the door for a large array of applications.

“Other labs can make really good nanotubes that are are short or really crummy ones that are long. We've developed a technique that makes really good ones that are really long,” Langley staff scientist Mike Smith says. What the team did was to basically develop a completely new synthesis method for high-quality boron-nitride nanotubes (BNNT). These structures are difficult to produce because they have a crystalline structure and also a very small diameter. As such, making it stable posed a double-challenge, the scientists say.

The new technology has been named the pressurized vapor/condenser (PVC) method. The production process is fairly simple, but it needed this boos... (read more)