Materials known as thin films play a key role in developing new technology, aiding everything from health care to TVs.
One of the limiting factors for them has been the necessity for and difficulty of producing such films with as few imperfections as possible.
That process might soon become much easier thanks to research being conducted by UT’s Ramki Kalyanaraman.
Nanotechweb, a key science publication located in Bristol, England, recently talked to Kalyanaraman about the process his research team has developed and the promise it holds.
“People waste a lot of time trying to get a smooth film,” Kalyanaraman, of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, told the magazine. “So we started with these rough films that are generally not useful and tried to convert them into something useful.”
The technique utilizes what is called pulsed laser melting to produce smooth films. Critically, discovered that it was even more effective when conducted underwater.
The full report can be read at Nanotechweb