Lightweight Conductors
As vehicles of all varieties become more integrated with electronics, the desire for lightweight conductors increases with it. By reducing the weight of the wiring in vehicles, they become more efficient since less work is required to propel them. By integrating metallic nanoparticles into a nanofibrous matrix, we aim to develop wiring that has conductivity on the same order of magnitude of the bulk metal, but at a fraction of the density.
Lightweight nanometallic composites
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High-strength conductor with mass reduction of an order of magnitude achieved.
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The material modality is multi-use and cross-cutting for a broad range of mass-restrictive applications.
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Alternative flexible conductors (e.g. amorphous metals, hybrid inorganic-organic nanocomposites) do not yield high electrical conductivity, high strength and ease-of-fabrication, combined properties that are difficult to achieve simultaneously.
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The Kevlar-based composite has high strength, toughness, and temperature resilience.
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Relevant Publications:
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Lyu, J., et al., High Strength Conductive Composites with Plasmonic Nanoparticles Aligned on Aramid Nanofibers, Adv. Func. Mat. (2016)
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Lyu, J., et al. Stretchable conductors by kirigami patterning of aramid-silver nanocomposites with zero conductance gradient. APL (2017).