January_February_2022_AMP_Digital

A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 2 9 the polymer network tightly linked, al- lowing for it to withstand compression. To make their glass-like hydrogels, the team chose specific guest molecules for the handcuff. Altering the molecu- lar structure of guest molecules within the handcuff allowed the dynamics of the material to slow down consider- ably, with the mechanical performance of the final hydrogel ranging from rub- ber-like to glass-like states. The researchers used the mate- rial to make a hydrogel pressure sen- sor for real-time monitoring of human motions, including standing, walking, and jumping. The “super jelly” could be used for a wide range of potential applications, including soft robotics, bioelectronics, or even as a cartilage replacement in some biomedical uses. www.cam.ac.uk . Metallic glasses are stronger than the best metals but with the pliability of plastic. Courtesy of Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science. FINDING METALLIC GLASSES Researchers from Yale University, New Haven, Conn., developed a new method to drastically reduce the time it takes to find and make metallic glasses. Quantifying the glass-forming ability of metals and alloys is experimentally elaborate and computationally chal- lenging due to its complexity. Now, the team’s novel method takes much of the time and the trial-and-error out of the process by using conventional x-ray diffraction to determine how readily an alloy can be converted to glass. They processed about 5700 x-ray diffraction patterns from 12 alloy systems—an ex- ceptional amount of experimental data, both in quantity and in consistent qual- ity. According to the researchers, per- forming just one x-ray diffraction can help them distinguish between glasses by examining the width of the first peak. “This width tells us how easy it is to form a glass,” they explain. The method can also help scientists draw conclu- sions about the glasses’ glass-forming ability, providing an easily measur- able structural signature of a property. yale.edu .