Memory plastic employs tiny magnets
Later this year, coming to a clinic near you -- shape-memory polymers.
These are materials that transform themselves to a predetermined shape on command. They'll first emerge as products like self-tying sutures, fast-adjusting braces for teeth, and (no doubt) toys and games.
Most of these plastics are activated by direct heat or light. But as the shot below demonstrates, now there's a new way to make them remember their shape... Magnetism.
Andreas Lendlein and colleagues discovered how to incorporate nanoscale particles of magnetite surrounded by a layer of silica into the plastic. An alternating magnetic field interacts with these particles, causing them to heat up and trigger the shape-change.
The sequence of pictures shows how the black polymer strip straightens out as magnetism is applied via the coils.
Wow.
This article speculates how the innovation may eventually lead to artificial muscles or morphing skin on plane wings.