Self-healing materials

By David Bradley2010-07-01T00:00:00

New material could be used to build nuclear power stations - brightly coloured power stations

Source: Dr Jeremy Burgess/Science Photo Library

Scientists discover construction materials that can undo the damage caused by radiation

Xian-Ming Bai and colleagues at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), US, showed, using computer simulations on nano-crystalline copper materials, that when these materials are exposed to radiation and damage occurs they can 'heal' themselves by reversing the migration of atoms within the material's structure when it is further bombarded with radiation.

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