In this article, we provide a perspective overview of the iconic properties, recent application-oriented research, and future commercialization opportunities of thin film metallic glasses (TFMGs). A brief review on the preparation and fundamental properties of TFMGs will be given first. TFMGs possess attractive properties such as corrosion resistance, extremely low roughness, and antibacterial characteristics, which give rise to various applications in biomedical devices, sensors, and tribology. Therefore, a number of our representative works will be reviewed to showcase the benefits of TFMGs over traditional materials and processing in these applications. In addition, new perspectives in the research and development of TFMGs and opportunities for commercialization will also be highlighted.
Elastic
moduli, E, of free-standing polystyrene
(PS) single-layers and polystyrene–polydimethylsiloxane (PS-PDMS)
bilayers are measured by uniaxial tensile testing at room temperature
under different strain rates, γ̇, and for PS thicknesses, h, from 8 to 130 nm. As γ̇ increases, E increases initially, then approaches the bulk value, E
bulk, when γ̇ exceeds a characteristic
value (≡ τ–1) that decreases with increasing h. The noted variation of E with γ̇
shows that stress relaxation occurs in the films during measurement
when γ̇τ ≪ 1, while the noted variation of
τ–1 with h shows that thinner
films relax faster. Consequently, E decreases with
decreasing h if γ̇ is small, but displays
independence of h if γ̇ is large. Visually,
the crossover takes place at around γ̇ = 0.0015 s–1, where at γ̇τ > 1 for all films.
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This paper demonstrates a stainless-steel (SS) nano-pyramid structure (diameter of ~20–50 nm and pore size of 156.1 nm) sputter-coated on mixed cellulose ester (MCE) membrane for the use in separation of oil/water emulsions. SS-coated MCE membrane presented a superhydrophilic, antifouling surface as well as underwater superoleophobicity. The coated membrane achieved excellent separation efficiency of >99% when applied to light oil-water emulsions with a range of viscosities and densities. The highest permeation flux measured was 1,555 L m−2 h−1 when applied to toluene-in-water emulsions. The membrane also presented outstanding recyclability, as evidenced by oil rejection rate retaining at >99% through four separation cycles. The coated membrane was also shown to work well under harsh conditions including salty water, extreme pH values (1–14), and high temperatures (60 °C). In addition, our fabrication route of SS-coated MCE employs low process temperature while being highly scalable, which is favorable for industrial-scale applications.
How cancer cells respond to different mechanical environments remains elusive. Here, we investigated the tension in single focal adhesions of MDA-MB-231 (metastatic breast cancer cells) and MCF-10A (normal human breast cells) cells on substrates of varying stiffness using single-cell measurements. Tension measurements in single focal adhesions using an improved FRET-based tension sensor showed that the tension in focal adhesions of MDA-MB-231 cells increased on stiffer substrates while the tension in MCF-10A cells exhibited no apparent change against the substrate stiffness. Viscoelasticity measurements using magnetic tweezers showed that the power-law exponent of MDA-MB-231 cells decreased on stiffer substrates whereas MCF-10A cells had similar exponents throughout the whole stiffness, indicating that MDA-MB-231 cells change their viscoelasticity on stiffer substrates. Such changes in tension in focal adhesions and viscoelasticity against the substrate stiffness represent an adaptability of cancer cells in mechanical environments, which can facilitate the metastasis of cancer cells to different tissues.
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