Focus on materials

Goodfellow Corp offers more than 200 metals and materials in powder form for use by researchers and design engineers. Particle sizes range from 0.08 mm (for example, palladium) to 850 mm (for example, iridium). In addition to pure metals, alloys, ceramics, polymers, and compounds, a number of custom-made alloys are available in powder form. They can be manufactured using various techniques, and their composition can often be specified to meet individual requirements. Applications for powders are wide ranging, with benefits derived from both the form and the general properties of the specific material. For example, the large surface-area-to-volume ratio makes certain metal powders excellent for use as catalysts. A fine powder of certain materials is also easy to dissolve in a solvent for casting thin films. In addition, powders can be used to produce porous structures by sintering. Goodfellow Corporation, 305 High Tech Drive, Oakdale, PA 15071-3911, http://www.goodfellowusa.com

Master Bond’s polymer adhesive supreme 10AOHT-LO is a single-component, no-mix compound with superior electrical insulation, high thermal conductivity, and toughness. The epoxy’s properties make it resistant to impact, thermal shock, vibration, and stress-fatigue cracking, characteristics that are vitally important in the aerospace, optical, medical, and oil- and chemical-processing industries. The 10AOHT-LO meets NASA low outgasing specifications and has superior durability and dimensional stability. It is formulated to cure at temperatures between 250 °F and 300 °F for 1 hour and to form bonds in the 4 K-400 °F range that are resistant to severe thermal cycling and to chemicals such as water, oil, and various fuels. Master Bond Inc, 154 Hobart Street, Hackensack, NJ 07601, http://www.masterbond.com

The Indentron 300 and 400 series hardness testers feature an innovative cantilevered indenter configuration that eliminates frictional inconsistencies typical of other available testing systems. The testers comply with ASTM E18. They use precision dead weights to ensure precise, accurate, and repeatable measurements. Process-timing control automation reduces the variation introduced by the flow of the material under load. If the preload is inadvertently over loaded or under loaded, the Indentron system prevents the test from being performed. The indenter design is suitable for testing inside diameters and recesses, often impossible with traditional hardness testers. Inside diameters as small as 1 $1 2$ inches can be tested with the standard indenter; optional indenters can test diameters as small as $1 2$ inch. Newage Testing Instruments Inc, 820 Pennsylvania Boulevard, Feasterville, PA 19053, http://www.hardnesstesters.com

The McPherson Commander is an f/4.8 triple spectrometer for UV and wide wavelength range Raman applications to materials. It has continuously tunable wavelength positioning for work with tunable lasers, to seek resonance or to work where filters are not available, deep in the UV. In the UV, the Commander operates to the edge of the atmospheric transmission envelope at 185 nm. A wide selection of diffraction gratings and cooled (-100 °C) CCD detectors ensure sensitivity to the limits of available technology. The system bandpass, rejection edge, and spectral resolution are controlled by a flexible, user-adjustable configuration of slit width, apertures, and gratings control. The high-resolution and aperture-matched spectrograph stage optimizes flux and provides for imaging across a large focal plane. The f/4.8 Commander delivers full-width half-maximum spectral resolution of less than 1 cm². McPherson Inc, 7A Stuart Road, Chelmsford, MA 01824, http://mcphersoninc.com

Alfa Aesar has introduced a line of anhydrous solvents featuring the new Active Dry alkali metal silica gel system, an efficient drying agent and impurity remover for anionic polymerization processes. Commonly used drying agents require distillation to remove traces of the agent, and standard drying procedures are a tedious limiting factor in both laboratory and industrial production scale reactions. Active Dry provides drying performance comparable to that of other recognized methods and has the added benefit of not requiring a postdrying and postpurifying workup. Each Active Dry solvent has a pouch immersed in the solvent to ensure dryness and is sealed with an Alfa Aesar ChemSeal septum cap. The initial line of solvents includes benzene, heptane, hexane, and tetrahydrofuran. Alfa Aesar, 26 Parkridge Road, Ward Hill, MA 01835, http://www.alfa.com

Bayer MaterialScience and Carclo Technical Plastics, an optics design and manufacturing firm, have developed a grade of polycarbonate resin to meet the requirements of Carclo’s new 30-mm-diameter optic. The optic’s large size is needed to efficiently collimate all the light from large-diameter LED light sources. With LED optics, the larger the optic, the greater the material light loss, because all optics naturally absorb some light due to their thickness. Bayer MaterialScience therefore formulated a very low loss material, a grade of polycarbonate resin that allows for up to 92.3% efficiency in a 30-mm-diameter optic lens. The new Makrolon LED2643 polycarbonate is expected to receive a UL-94 V-2 rating, the latest UL 8750 standards for LED lighting. Bayer MaterialScience LLC, 100 Bayer Road, Pittsburgh, PA 15205-9741, http://www.bayermaterialsciencenafta.com

Bekaert has made available its new compact end block (CEB) for mediumpower solar cell applications. Solar energy is proving to be a viable solution to the growing demand for clean, renewable energy generation. Thin-film layer depositions play a key role in the fabrication of efficient solar cells. Bekaert’s advanced rotating magnetron technology currently enables photovoltaic cell manufacturers to move cost-effectively into volume manufacturing while optimizing cell performance. The company’s magnet bar AMB V3 is a sputtering system using cooling magnet architecture optimized for sputter uniformity, target utilization, and reproducibility. Rotatable sputter targets include the one-piece zinc oxide doped with aluminum oxide. Bekaert Corporation, 1277 East Hoxie Street, P. O. Box 877, Spring Green, WI 53588, http://www.bekaert.com

Deposition Sciences, a manufacturer of highly durable thin-film optical coatings, provides long-wave IR (LWIR) bandpass filters that are functional at any temperature between ambient and 10 K. The thin-film coatings feature extremely precise band-edge placement for critical sensing applications. The company’s LWIR bandpass filters are suitable for use in imaging sensor filters, thermal and night vision tasks, and forward-looking IR optics. A variety of substrates, such as germanium, silicon, zinc sulfide, and zinc selenide, are available for the LWIR filters, depending on the user’s wavelength requirements. Multispectral filters are also available when multiple filters are needed on a single substrate. The filters are available in various sizes, from a few millimeters to more than 2 inches in diameter. Out-of-band transmittance can be designed for various optical densities and spectral ranges. Deposition Sciences Incorporated, 3300 Coffey Lane, Santa Rosa, CA 95403, http://www.depsci.com

The PS 33-650 series of contact pastes for solar cells from Ferro Electronic Materials provide contacts for high-efficiency silicon cell designs such as n- or p-type wafers and bifacial and interdigitated back-contact solar cells. Ferro’s new technology enhances electrical efficiency through low contact resistance, optimum bulk resistance, and excellent line resolution and aspect ratio. The materials have excellent solderability and adhesion when used with leaded or lead-free solders. The cadmium- and phthalate-free pastes are compliant with the restriction-of- hazardous- substances regulations and are compatible with lead-free aluminum inks used for emitter formation in some n-type silicon configurations. Ferro also supplies low firing temperature LF 33-700 series silver conductors and LF 33-750 polymer silver conductors that are compatible with aluminum-based emitter structures. Ferro Electronic Materials, 1000 Lakeside Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44114-7000, http://www.ferro.com

The metal jacket series of gold- and aluminum-coated optical fibers from Fiberguide Industries have proven effective in a number of scientific applications, including Raman spectroscopy for high-temperature analytical measurements. Originally developed for ultra-high- reliability telecommunications, the metal coating preserves the fiber’s mechanical strength and provides resistance against static fatigue caused by long-term tensile loading. The fibers can also withstand a wide range of temperatures, with aluminum-coated fibers rated from −269 °C to 400 °C and gold rated from −269 °C to 700 °C. Gold or aluminum coating can be applied on continuous lengths to various multimode, step-index, graded-index, and single-mode fibers. Core-to-clad ratios of 1.1, 1.2, and 1.4 are available with numerical apertures of 0.12 and 0.26. Nonstandard sizes can be manufactured on request. Fiberguide Industries, 1 Bay Street, Stirling, NJ 07980, www.fiberguide.com

Rigaku Americas Corp and Art Robbins Instruments have announced that the Phoenix RE (Rigaku Edition) protein drop setter will now be equipped with a new nano-dispense head, the ARI nano. According to the companies, the ARI nano offers significant benefits over previous models, including improved accuracy of protein dispensing and washing and an expanded needle service life. In addition to the air-backed method, the new design allows the ARI nano to perform liquid-backed dispensing that delivers accuracy for highly viscous proteins and distributes volumes below 100 nl. The head can be configured with up to four channels. With a positive displacement 96-channel head to dispense the screens and a noncontact nano-dispenser to administer the protein, the Phoenix RE employs an accurate closed-loop motion to produce the drop-on-drop action required for protein crystallography. Rigaku Automation, 5999 Avenida Encinas, Suite 150, Carlsbad, CA 92008, http://www.rigaku.com

Surrey NanoSystems has begun production of nanomaterials using an automated and versatile growth platform, NanoGrowth Catalyst. Incorporating nine advanced nanomaterial processing techniques, the platform can synthesize an exceptional variety of nanomaterials, including graphene, nanowires, and carbon nanotubes. It can replace multiple pieces of equipment with a single automated system. The processing techniques supported by the new platform are low-pressure chemical vapor deposition and plasma-enhanced CVD, sputtering, sputter etching and ashing, delivery of solid- or liquid-phase catalysts and precursors, creation of controlled-density nanoparticle catalysts at room temperature, thermal annealing, rapid thermal processing, and a unique form of rapid thermal growth for nanomaterials that has been developed to prevent agglomeration of catalyst particles. Surrey NanoSystems, Euro Business Park, Building 24, New Road, Newhaven, BN9 0DQ, UK, http://www.surreynanosystems.com

Sumitomo Electric and Cobham Technical Services are offering a new solution for the design of electrical machines and power equipment. Cobham’s Quench, an electromagnetic software tool for modeling the quenching process in superconducting materials, now comes with a library containing comprehensive manufacturer- supplied material characterization data for the DI-BSSCO superconducting wire produced by Sumitomo Electric. Together they will potentially simplify the design and prototyping stages of applying high-temperature superconductors. The Quench tool is available as part of Cobham’s Opera computer-aided engineering software suite for low-frequency electromagnetic simulation. Quench is a suitable simulation tool for superconducting equipment because of its rigorous multiphysics modeling, which couples the electromagnetic and thermal modeling processes. Cobham Technical Services, 1700 North Farnsworth Avenue, Aurora, IL 60505, http://www.cobham.com

Tosoh SMD has introduced indium tin oxide rotary sputtering targets for thin-film solar applications. The high-density ITO targets provide consistent predictable performance throughout the life of the target and from target to target, ensuring a superior transparent conductive oxide film. Tosoh ITO sputtering targets are produced by blending high purity powders to user specifications, applying cold isostatic pressing to the powders, then sintering them before final machining. Tosoh ITO achieves a density of more than 99% with uniform microstructure to ensure consistent performance and reduced arcing and nodule formation. The Tosoh targets provide lower cost of ownership by offering long-life rotary designs with target thicknesses of up to 25 µm, rotary tile lengths of up to 250 µm, and bonded rotary assemblies of up to 3 m in length. Nondestructive testing methods ensure bond integrity. Tosoh SMD Inc, 3600 Gantz Road, Grove City, OH 43123, http://tosohsmd.com

The role of materials science and engineering in meeting both short- and long-term energy challenges is the focus of Advanced Materials for Our Energy Future, a new publication from the Materials Research Society. It is a thorough but accessible reference tool for policymakers, media professionals, educators, and individuals interested in learning more about the materials technologies that form the basis of energy creation, conservation, and delivery. The publication focuses on the role of materials technologies in energy efficiency and supply, environment protection, and job creation and includes a brief summary of each technology and an outline of related R&D priorities. Materials Research Society, 506 Keystone Drive, Warrendale, PA 15086-7537, http://www.mrs.org