Revision as of 16:28, 17 February 2015

Generalized definition: Metamaterial

A diamondoioid metameterial is an material that has a for the human senses unpercievable small structure that enables it to create a plethora of mechanical properties with just one or a few chemical compounds that are suitable for advanced APM as base materials.

Diamondoid metameterials form the necessary basis for the yet speculative advanced applications of the goal technology level. These highly complex applications will only become possible through the smart combination of the set of newly available metamaterials with novel properties.

Depending on the design of the APM nanofactory that assembles the diamondoid metamaterials (vacuum handling ...) they can be organized in microcomponents or be monolithic.

Note that there's a grey zone between compounds and metamaterials (e.g. compounds including vacancies distributed in a checkerboard pattern). One could call these low level metamaterials. A short note on low level diamondoid metamaterials can be found on the page describing diamondoid materials.

Todays definition of metamaterials is a bit different but this term still if fitting best here.

robustness of AP microscale machine systems

• Natural background radiation won't hit a system for decades on average.
• The digital nature of AP building blocks (copies have completely identical bond topology) makes them self correct their alignment in spite of thermal expansion. This allows for highly scalable system design. The same can be seen in digital electronics mechanical flaws up to 5% in length of chip structures and similar electrical flaws in voltage are self correcting.
• Effect of lack of defects - diaomond gum:
  Substances that are normally very brittle can take enormous strain (in the two digit perecent range) when they're completely free of defects. With APM making completely defect free microscopic parts is easy. When those microscopic parts are combined back together in a smart way that prevents crack propagation (e.g. with interlocking shapes) this property can be retained into the macroscopic size range. See "emulated elasticity" for more details.

List of new materials / base technologies

The set of here presented meta-materials seems less speculative and more incomplete than the list of applications on the products page. It is sorted by design/programming effort which is rather subjective and subject to debate.

low effort

• simple standard macro diamondoid structural meta materials
• molecular filters
• macroscopic super-bearings (one can only see a speed gradient)
  
• anisotropic material properties (e.g. scissoring mechanisms material)
• data storage material and the like

medium effort

• artificial muscles with higher power densities than todays combustion engines. They can replace todays (2014) electrical motors that often use the not too abundant rare earth elements.
• absolutely silent (macro motionless) pumps a "pumping material" with no movable parts which are visible to the naked eye.
• cells for the direct conversion from mechanical to chemical energy and vice versa (chemomechanical converters).
• super-fast shearing valves
• material structuring into microcomponents for recycling and recomposition
• structures borrowed from origami techniques
• tensegrity structures.
• emulated color
• transformer metamaterials: purely mechanical pulse width modulation

high effort

Not to scale! Well designed nano to micro structure can create extraordinary mechanical material properties (graphic not to scale). Stress strain behaviour to order may be possible (in bounds). SVG

• "elastic diamond" (made possible through the implementation as a semi active metamaterial)
• maximizing emulated toughness ("beefy" that is much volume occupying dissipation elements are needed - how far can be gone with active high power cooling ?)
• materials with choosable / adjustable stress-strain diagram (emulated elastoplasticity)
• actively self cleaning surfaces (no "stupid" lotus effect meant here) (macroscopic shell cleaning)
• self repairing materials and self repairing macroscopic machine parts - no decay through weather or root growth.
• combinations of several metamaterial properties that don't get too well together
• .... and many more

The limits of metamaterials

Some combinations of material properties are just not permitted by physical law and can thus not or only to a small degree emulated by metamaterials.
Examples for this are:

• non polarising optical transparency of thick plates is incompatible to isotropic electric conductivity
• very high thermal isolation conflicts with material strength