Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2024 - 22

heated the material to a higher temperature,
it expelled the trapped hydrogen particles
without modifying the coatings - a
process that essentially regenerates the material
so it can be used again.
Graduate students Evan Willing (left) and Tyler Dabney set up equipment to apply a coating via cold
spray in Professor Kumar Sridharan's Cold Spray Laboratory. (Image: Joel Hallberg)
entire surface, while preserving nanoscale
boundaries between the coating
particles. The researchers discovered
that those tiny boundaries facilitate trapping
of hydrogen particles.
Ialovega conducted experiments on the
coated material at facilities at Aix Marseille
University in France and Forschungszentrum
Jülich GmbH in Germany. During
these experiments, he found that when he
" Another big benefit of the cold spray
method is that it allows us to repair reactor
components on site by applying a new coating, "
Ialovega said. " Currently, damaged
reactor components often need to be removed
and replaced with a completely new
part, which is costly and time consuming. "
The researchers plan to use their new
material in the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric
Mirror (WHAM). The experimental
device is under construction near Madison,
WI, and will serve as a prototype for
a future next-generation fusion power
plant that UW-Madison spinoff Realta
Fusion aims to develop.
The researchers are patenting their
technology through the Wisconsin
Alumni Research Foundation.
For more information, contact Kumar
Sridharan at kumar.sridharan@wisc.edu.
A Novel Approach to Controlling Energy Waves in 4D
Scientists engineered a synthetic metamaterial to direct mechanical waves along a specific
path, which adds an innovative layer of control to 4D reality - the synthetic dimension.
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
E
veryday life involves the three dimensions
or 3D - along an X, Y, and Z
axis, or up and down, left and right, and
forward and back. But, in recent years
scientists like Guoliang Huang, the Huber
and Helen Croft Chair in Engineering
at the University of Missouri, have
explored a " fourth dimension " (4D), or
synthetic dimension, as an extension of
our current physical reality.
Now, Huang and a team of scientists
in the Structured Materials and Dynamics
Lab at the MU College of Engineering
have successfully created a new
synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities,
including the ability to control
energy waves on the surface of a solid
material. These waves, called mechanical
surface waves, are fundamental to
how vibrations travel along the surface
of solid materials.
While the team's discovery, at this
stage, is simply a building block for other
scientists to take and adapt as needed,
the material also has the potential
to be scaled up for larger applications
related to civil engineering, micro-electromechanical
systems (MEMS) and national
defense uses.
A rendering of the new synthetic metamaterial with 4D capabilities designed by scientists at the
University of Missouri. It includes the ability to control energy waves on the surface of a solid material.
(Image: showme.missouri.edu)
22
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" Conventional materials are limited
to only three dimensions with an X, Y,
and Z axis, " Huang said. " But now we
are building materials in the synthetic
dimension, or 4D, which allows us to
manipulate the energy wave path to
go exactly where we want it to go as it
travels from one corner of a material
to another. "
Tech Briefs, May 2024

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Tech Briefs Magazine - May 2024

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