《Bioinspired nanoporous silicon provides great toughness at great deformability》.pdf

Computational Materials Science 48 (2010) 303–309 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Computational Materials Science journal homepage: www.elsevi /locate/commatsci Bioinspired nanoporous silicon provides great toughness at great deformability Andre P. Garcia, Markus J. Buehler * Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Room 1-235AB, Cambridge, MA, USA a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: The ability of nature to integrate disparate properties in materials is astounding. Diatoms, unicellular Received 27 September 2009 algae that originated approximately 200 million years ago, contain frustules, or silicified cell walls with Received in revised form 13 December 2009 nanoscale size pores, which are surprisingly tough when compared to bulk silica, which is one of the most Accepted 14 January 2010 brittle materials known. For example, the frustule morphology of the Coscinodiscus sp. diatom consists of Available online 18 February 2010 a hierarchy of three overlapping porous silica layers that lie on a hexagonal grid, much like a honeycomb within a honeycomb. Here we utilize the porous structure found in diatoms to develop a bioinspired Keywords: nanoporous material implemented in silicon. By varying the size of the trusses in the constituting silicon Biological m