Gauss’s law dictates that the net electric field inside a conductor in electrostatic equilibrium is zero by effective charge screening; free carriers within a metal eliminate internal dipoles that may arise owing to asymmetric charge distributions. Quantum physics supports this view, demonstrating that delocalized electrons make a static macroscopic polarization, an ill-defined quantity in metals—it is exceedingly unusual to find a polar metal that exhibits...
Tag Archives: metals
Polar metals by geometric design
Gauss’s law dictates that the net electric field inside a conductor in electrostatic equilibrium is zero by effective charge screening; free carriers within a metal eliminate internal dipoles that may arise owing to asymmetric charge distributions. Quantum physics supports this view, demonstrating that delocalized electrons make a static macroscopic polarization, an ill-defined quantity in metals—it is exceedingly unusual to find a polar metal that exhibits...
Materials science: Strength ceiling smashed for light metals
Nanoscale particles have been uniformly dispersed in a magnesium alloy, yielding composites with record-breaking strengths — and raising the prospect of using magnesium as a lightweight metal for structural applications. See Letter p.539
Nature 528 486 doi: 10.1038/528486a
Materials science: Strength ceiling smashed for light metals
Nanoscale particles have been uniformly dispersed in a magnesium alloy, yielding composites with record-breaking strengths — and raising the prospect of using magnesium as a lightweight metal for structural applications. See Letter p.539
Nature 528 486 doi: 10.1038/528486a