materialsscienceandengineering:
Caution: Weird material shrinks when warm
Most materials swell when they warm, but some do the opposite; quantum effects could explain why
Most materials swell when they warm, and shrink when they cool. But UConn physicist Jason Hancock has been investigating a substance that responds in reverse: it shrinks when it warms.
Although thermal expansion, and the cracking and warping that often result, are an everyday occurrence – in buildings, bridges, electronics, and almost anything else exposed to wide temperature swings – physicists have trouble explaining why solids behave that way.
Research by Hancock and his colleagues into scandium trifluoride, a material that has negative thermal expansion, published 1 October in Physical Review B, may lead to a better understanding of why materials change volume with temperature at all, with potential applications such as more durable electronics.
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