Microscopic Sized Marbles Can Set Off New Fashion Trend

Fashionistas could very well get a new kind of smart clothing wear if this new technique by Cambridge University researchers involving microscopic marbles or transparent nano-spheres hits ground.

The new microscopic marbles can be used in various ways that could include smart clothing, smart covers or even on bank notes. The team was able to come up with the new discovery using bright-colored materials from nature that include Opal gemstones, butterfly wings and beetles.

The beauty that these transparent nano-sphere articles offer is that they carry natural colors which may eventually eliminate the use of dyes or pigments, leaving much of that to the stones which have their own microstructures for rendering proper colors.

Taking years to experiment, the problem here could fall on the cost of using them. The researchers used a method called “Bend-Induced Oscillatory-Shearing” (BIOS) which could allow them to produce hundreds of meters of the said material known as “polymer opals”.

The process includes piling up the tiny marbles into regular layers that would eventually form an intriguing mold and scatter light into captivating colors when they are stretched or twisted.

“Finding a way to coax objects a billionth of a meter across into perfect formation over kilometer scales is a miracle. But spheres are only the first step, as it should be applicable to more complex architectures on tiny scales", said Professor Jeremy Baumberg, the paper's senior author.

Vats of transparent plastic nano-spheres were needed to create the opals but manufacturing them in large quantities required the team to understand first to study the particles’ internal structure.

To do so, the research team had to employ a variety of techniques that included electron microscopy, x-ray scattering, rheology and optical spectroscopy. After that, they measured how the spheres slide past each other and how the colors changed.

With the newly discovered materials, the main point is bringing down the cost of producing them which would later on be tied up to the cost of offering finished products using the nano-spheres to the consumer market.

The discovery is another breakthrough but more research is in order to make it fit for consumer acceptance and market feasibility.