Polymer superstrings.
Placing a blend of two polymers in between two quartz disks and rotating
the upper one at a controlled rate produces "shear" forces that, below
a certain magnitude, causes droplets of one polymer to coalesce into
long strings up to 10 centimeters long. Microscopic pictures of the
polymer blends are shown on the right. Such polymer superstrings might
have numerous applications, for example as polymer wires.
See
the movie.
(Courtesy Kalman
Migler, NIST)
Reported by: Kalman Migler, Physical Review Letters, 5 February, 2001.
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