Electronics for high-altitude use can get smaller and sturdier with new nanomaterials

WASHINGTON — As demand for higher-efficiency and smaller electronics grows, so does demand for a new generation of materials that can be printed at ever smaller dimensions. Such materials are critical to national security applications and space exploration. But materials that work well on Earth don’t always hold up well at high altitudes and in space. Scientists are now creating new metal-based nanomaterials for circuit boards that could be resistant to the high-altitude radiation encountered by electronics in aerospace equipment, fighter jets and weapon systems. The researchers are presenting their results through the American Chemical Society (ACS) SciMeetings online platform. “This research grew out of the huge need at U.S. national laboratories for electronic materials that are stable when subjected to ionizing radiation,” says Timothy J. Boyle, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator. “We started looking at nanometal materials because they can be printed at the required smaller dimension, but we had to overcome their tendency to be damaged by ionizing radiation.”