Risø scientists look at promising commercial prospects for bulk metallic glasses in new Science article

Metallic glasses are metal alloys congealed in glassy states instead of the crystalline structure which metals usually are composed of. Metallic glasses appear after rapid cooling of melted metal alloy.

Collect large amounts of elastic energy
Until now, the ability of the metallic glasses to collect large amounts of elastic energy has been utilised. The BMG material Vitreloy is used for golf clubs and tennis rackets. But Vitreloy can also be used for many other purposes, such as cover for mobile phones and USB-memory sticks. A unique application is to use this metallic glass as coating for the heads of oil drills.

Innovation consortium produce metal components in micro size
Risø DTU has in cooperation with the pharmaceutical company Novo, the hearing aid company Oticon and the subcontractors Sonion and Elos-Pinol established the innovation consortium Mikrometal.

The objective of Mikrometal is to produce metal components in micro size, because metallic glasses this size have many advantages over traditional crystalline metals. A component of a complex form can be produced by metallic glass in one working procedure, while much more work is required when the component is produced in a traditional way. When heated to a certain temperature, the metallic glasses can spread without melting. In this way it is easy to shape them, and when cooled again they become extremely hard and strong.
Many metallic glasses are fragile like for instance ordinary window glass, and they break easily when exposed to draught. In order to improve the metallic glass, research is conducted in designing metallic glass with embedded nanocrystals which can improve the plasticity of the metallic glass.

Read the article in Science, vol. 321, 25 July 2008, page 502.