Colorado State University

This week, a publication long in the making was finally published, telling a story of a new material “RAMETRIC” that was first discovered by Scott Compel who went on to form AEMS Corp based on this material. James Armstrong (now a Thin Film Engineer at Spark Ionx) and collaborators–many at Lawrence Livermore National Lab–characterized this material using a myriad of very different techniques elucidate the underlying structure that gives rise to it’s unique properties.

We offer the following description for the cover art (shown again above): Metal-rich soft materials such as metallogels and metal-organic frameworks are investigated in catalysis, hydrogen storage, and electronics.  Armstrong et al. report a novel metal-rich material, which with remarkable mechanical strength. This Rigid Amorphous Metal Rich (RAMETRIC) material is colloidal when hydrated.  The colloids comprise silver-cysteine oligomers (blue), cross-linked by additional silver ions (orange).  Upon dehydration, the material coalesces into the RAMETRIC phase; The sol-RAMETRIC transition is illustrated in the background.

Image by Collin Ladd.