Magnetic microhair material can change transparency, and make water flow uphill

Magnetic microhair material can change transparency, and make water flow uphill

What if your house's windows could automatically reduce the amount of hot sunlight passing through them, or your car's windshield could cause rain droplets to bead off to its edges? These things and more could soon be possible, thanks to a new animal hair-inspired material developed at MIT.

The material consists of a base layer of transparent flexible silicone, studded with a dense array of tiny nickel microhairs (or "micropillars"). At around 70 microns in height and 25 microns in width, each one is approximately a quarter the diameter of a human hair.

When an external magnetic field is applied at one side of the array, all of the hairs simultaneously bend towards it. The degree to which they bend can be controlled by varying the intensity of the field.

Firstly, this response can be used to alter how much light passes through the material. While the microhair array is pretty much clear when viewed top-down while the hairs are standing straight up, its opacity increases as the hairs bend over – they're essentially working like the slats in a set of window blinds.

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Now this is pretty cool. The applications for this tech seems wide open and could affect just about everyone and ever business. I can see this tech also being a catalyst for new industries / areas of technology.

Thought I would share.

a reply to: Xcathdra



i like how she says "versatile artificial skin" .... this reads in my mind... reactive body armor. reactive camo. hmmmmm the possibilities. i wonder how much energy can be disperse and how much can be shaped around with this stuff.

if you could program it to work in layers you could "shuck off" quite a blow with it i imagine..


i wonder if you could build an artificial muscle with this stuff.. would there be a way to have some of this react in the vicinity of other layers of it that react in a different way? like making just 1 layer react one way while simultaneously making another layer react a different way? a faraday cage copper mesh in between maybe? you could get some serious physical locomotion out of a heap of this stuff contracting and expanding in different ways!

a reply to: mindseye1609
Interesting...

I wonder if it could be applied on the exterior of planes / etc and if it could be adapted to be effective with heat dissipation.

The other question is whats the possible application for naval submarines.

a reply to: Xcathdra

There are "Gravity Hills" all around the world where objects appear to roll uphill.

en.wikipedia.org...