Chips that can repair themselves – Part 2

Conitnued….

The solutions in these cases, according Sottos are very limited, "there is little chance of repair manual. Sometimes you cannot access the inside (of systems). In a multilayer integrated circuit, for example, there are no openings.

Normally, to repair it only remains to replace the entire chip. The same goes for batteries: it would destroy them to find the source of failure. “As a result, most electronic devices need to be replaced with some frequency, leading to too many e-waste.
How to develop technology self-repair, the Illinois researchers first created a self-healing polymeric materials, which subsequently adapted conveyor systems. In particular, scientists scattered small microcapsules with a diameter of only 10 microns (one micron
equals 0.001 mm) on a bead of gold functioning as circuit.

When this cord crack occurred, the microcapsules burst and released a liquid metal contained therein. This metal is introduced into the crevice of the circuit, repairing and allowing it to be resumed electrical flow. With this method, 99% managed to restore
the original conductivity of the gold.

This percentage of success was repeated in 90% of the tested cases, even using a small amount of microcapsules. Scientists explain that these microcapsules open only to be intercepted by a crack, so that repair occurs only in the place is broken, not the
entire surface of the conductor.

Multiple Advantages The main advantage of this technology is that it requires human intervention or previous diagnoses. For this reason, it may be useful for the repair of devices that cannot be opened, such as batteries.

 It could also be used for appliances that cannot be accessed, as the devices on satellites or spacecraft. On the other hand, this self-healing system is autonomous, which is essential in certain conditions: "In a spacecraft there are thousands and thousands
of cables driving. Often it is unknown where failures occur.

The independent status in this context is fantastic: the system will know what is broken and where, even though we did not know, "said Sottos. According to White, this is the first example of using restorative microcapsules applied to the conductivity. To
date, this type of microcapsules had been used for structural repair, but not for repair of electronic devices.

 The results show, therefore, that the concept can be transferred to other fields. The scientists now plan to refine the system and explore other possibilities. Particularly interested in applying this technology for self-healing microcapsules batteries,
to improve safety and their duration. 

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=13495

Posted by Fouad Ashraf on Feb 21 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry