Gemstone based metamaterial
Simply by nanostructuring abundant elements they can (in the vast majority of cases) replace the scarce elements that are needed today. In fact the single element carbon suffices to replace almost all other materials.
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. (Here is a more generalized definition for: metamaterial)
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.
The definition for metamaterials today is according to wikipedia a bit different but this term still is fitting best here.
Utility fog could be considered a very complex high level metamaterial but its the most general unspecialised one. Much simpler specialised ones will do better for specific applications (e.g. street pavings).
Contents
robustness of AP microscale machine systems
- Natural background radiation won't hit a small part of a system for decades on average. Bigger systems can retain functionality reliably through redundancy.
- 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/accessible 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 -- local control makes that a display, light emitting systems might be more heterogenous (lasers?)
- transformer metamaterials: purely mechanical pulse width modulation and other materials for energy conversion
- transparent cloth with switchable stiffening e.g. for a helemt of an AP suit (interspersed multifunction metamaterial?)
- density shifting via translocation of mass carriers (possibly carrying lead atoms in diamiondoid form)
high effort
- "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 very high compressive material strength
Amount of usage of different types of metamaterials
Due to the very high power densities (see here) that can be handled with diamondoid metamaterials metamaterials for energy conversion (motors/generators) and transmission (infinitesimal bearings,...) will in most cases only take up a small fraction of a products volume. Leaving space for simpler design, more other functionality (e.g. datastorage) or allowing for higly collapsible design that get their shape by inflation with pressurized air.
