Abstract Scope |
Fiber thermal drawing is a well-established technique to fabricate telecommunication optical fibers. In the last twenty years, it has been shown that a variety of materials, including polymeric thermoplastics, elastomers, low melting point metals and optical glasses, could be co-drawn together, enabling the fabrication of multi-material fibers with a wide range of functionalities. Until recently however, no Bulk Metallic Glass (MG) composition have been found to be thermally drawn within polymer matrices. In this presentation, we will first demonstrate that careful materials selections allows for the fabrication of fibers containing nanometer feature size MG of various shapes. Second, we investigate the effect of thermal drawing on the metallic glass properties, and the achievable feature size via, among other techniques in-situ TEM, highlighting an interplay between fluid dynamics and crystallization behavior. Finally, we present various complex fiber-integrated MG architectures with novel applications in smart textiles, bioengineering, and electrochemical sensing. |