The Korea Herald\/Asia News Network Thursday, May 10, 2012 <\/p>\n
Korean scientists have developed technology that can control the way a solid material cracks for the first time in a breakthrough that could have applications in a range of fields from semiconductors to medicine. <\/p>\n
The research was featured on the cover of Wednesday's issue of Nature. It is the first time a Korean study has been on the cover of the world's most authoritative scientific journal. <\/p>\n
Nam Koo-hyun of Ewha Womans University, who led the research, said his discovery may pave the way for the development of a cheaper and quicker way to produce nano-channels. <\/p>\n
His team is the first to discover a technique to control cracking and make use of it, he said. <\/p>\n
\"The formation of cracks is traditionally considered an unpleasant phenomenon because we thought it is impossible to control,\" Nam told The Korea Herald. <\/p>\n
Nam's team used silicon wafers, thin slices of semiconductor material, in their experiment. <\/p>\n
They created micro-scaled cuts in a thin brittle film deposited on the silicon in order to control the starting point of cracking, and put a \"crack-stop-structure\" to terminate the cracking. <\/p>\n
\"By doing this we can place the starting point of cracking very precisely, and even control the direction of the cracks and bend them around corners,\" Nam told The Korea Herald. <\/p>\n
The nano-channels that are small enough to allow ions or molecules of a certain size to pass through are highly in demand in chemistry and molecular biology, such as DNA analysis. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Cracking study makes nanotech breakthrough<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Korea Herald\/Asia News Network Thursday, May 10, 2012 Korean scientists have developed technology that can control the way a solid material cracks for the first time in a breakthrough that could have applications in a range of fields from semiconductors to medicine. The research was featured on the cover of Wednesday's issue of Nature Continue reading