#大學英語聽力#
Diamond is one of the hardest materials on the planet, but scientists have found a new way of getting it to bend and deform – and the key to these processes is to work at the tiniest possible scales.
鑽石是地球上最堅硬的材料之一，但是科學家們發現了一種讓它彎曲和變形的新方法-而這些過程的關鍵是在儘可能小的範圍內工作。
By beaming an electric field at diamond nanoneedles just 20 nanometres in length (about 10,000 time smaller than a human hair), the researchers were able to get them to bend to 90 degrees without fracturing.
通過在長度僅為20納米(約為人類頭髮的10000倍)的鑽石納米針上照射電場，研究人員能夠讓它們在不斷裂的情況下彎曲到90度。
A scanning electron microscope was used for the pushing job, which doesn't lead to any damage or defects in the diamond, but does produce enough electrostatic charge for the needles to bend over.
一個掃描電子顯微鏡被用於推動工作，這不會導致鑽石中的任何損壞或缺陷，但確實會產生足夠的靜電電荷，使針彎曲。
The process is reversible, too.
這個過程也是可逆的。
This remarkable achievement could have a range of applications for how diamond is used – in storing energy, for example, or in protective materials, or even in quantum computing – but the researchers say that their work also warns about potential challenges for nanotechnology.
這一非凡成就可能會在鑽石的使用方式方面有一系列應用-例如，用於儲存能量，或用於保護材料，甚至用於量子計算-但研究人員表示，他們的研究也警告了納米技術的潛在挑戰。
Diamond nanoneedles under pressure.
壓力下的金剛石納米針。
(Regan et al., Advanced Materials, 2020)
(Regan等人，先進材料，2020)
"Diamond is the frontrunner for emerging applications in nanophotonics, microelectrical mechanical systems and radiation shielding," says material scientist Blake Regan, from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in Australia.
「鑽石是納米光子學、微電子機械系統和輻射屏蔽等新興應用領域的領跑者，」澳大利亞雪梨科技大學(UTS)的材料科學家布萊克·里根(Blake Regan)說。
"We need to know how these materials behave at the nanoscale – how they bend, deform, change state, crack. And we haven't had this information for single-crystal diamond."
「我們需要知道這些材料在納米尺度下的行為-它們是如何彎曲、變形、改變狀態、破裂的。我們還沒有得到關於單晶鑽石的這些信息。」
Regan and his colleagues are interested in how the mechanical properties of materials can change when you're dealing with very small samples of them; they ran molecular dynamics simulations alongside their experiments to analyse the underlying mechanisms.
Regan和他的同事們感興趣的是，當你處理非常小的樣品時，材料的機械特性會如何改變；他們在實驗的同時運行分子動力學模擬，以分析潛在的機制。
As well as bending the diamond nanoneedles forwards and backwards, the researchers also observed a new type of plastic deformation, where the needles didn't bend back.
除了向前和向後彎曲鑽石納米針外，研究人員還觀察到了一種新型的塑性變形，針不會向後彎曲。