About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
MS&T25: Materials Science & Technology
|
| Symposium
|
Materials and Manufacturing in Low Earth Orbit (and Beyond)
|
| Presentation Title |
The Generation of Gold Nanospheres in the Microgravity Environment of Low Earth Orbit |
| Author(s) |
Molly K. Mulligan, Kenneth A Savin |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Molly K. Mulligan |
| Abstract Scope |
Gold nanoparticles have great utility in a variety of electronic and biotechnology applications. As gold nanospheres grow they tend to become irregularly shaped. This abstract details efforts to generate more perfectly spherical, uniformly sized gold particles in microgravity on the International Space Station (ISS) and challenges that were overcome to execute this study.
Microgravity has been shown to make nanoparticles that are perfectly spherical and more regularly shaped than what can be grown terrestrially. This talk will discuss an effort to grow gold nanospheres that are larger, have a size range that is narrower and, that are more perfectly spherical than gold nanospheres generated on earth. This has not been done before with gold nanospheres. This is important because higher quality spheres can help improve their performance in associated device applications and do so at a small increase in cost and difficulty of production. |