science news (SciTechDaily.com article)
"University of Chicago scientists have discovered a way to create a material that can be made like a plastic, but conducts electricity more like a metal.
The research shows how to make a kind of material in which the molecular fragments are jumbled and disordered, but can still conduct electricity extremely well. It was published on October 26 in the journal Nature."
"“In principle, this opens up the design of a whole new class of materials that conduct electricity, are easy to shape, and are very robust in everyday conditions,” said John Anderson, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Chicago and the senior author on the study. “Essentially, it suggests new possibilities for an extremely important technological group of materials,” said Jiaze Xie (PhD’22, now at Princeton), the first author on the paper."
"The end result is unprecedented for a conductive material. “It’s almost like conductive Play-Doh—you can smush it into place and it conducts electricity,” Anderson said."
Again, for the folks who don't want to open the entire CW: "conductive Play-Doh" is the takeaway.
Y'all this is gonna fundamentally shift how electronics are manufactured in a LOT of ways.
@LexYeen Speaking as someone who works in electronics manufacturing we have our doubts that this will be very useful
it's neat, and will have some interesting applications, but we would be surprised if it causes fundamental shifts
-F
@Felthry I dunno, I feel like wires that are immune to metal fatigue damage alone is gonna change a few things.
@LexYeen I think the exciting new stuff to look at in the field of electronics right now is wide bandgap semiconductors. GaN stuff is already starting to hit the consumer market, and SiC is increasingly common in electric vehicles and industrial applications.
i'm looking forward to seeing GaN MOSFETs; apparently a couple companies are working on developing them (what they have right now are strange JFET-esque things called HEMTs, which are slightly awkward to use)
-F
@Felthry An utterly understandable perspective! I'll readily admit I'm a neophile.