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Chemistry

3D-printed material glows green under pressure or friction

A 3D-printed material emits a green glow when friction or pressure is applied to it. One application could be reducing the chances of a fracture when drilling into bone during surgery

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

29 May 2023

The material glows green under force

The material glows green under force

Songcheng Peng, Ping Xia, Ting Wang et al.

A 3D-printed material that glows when a force is applied to it could be used to better understand how objects break.

Xuhui Xu at the Kunming University of Science and Technology in China and his colleagues have created a material that glows where a force pushes on it.

Similar materials have been made before from compounds called lanthanides, which contain rare-earth elements like lutetium, but they are normally thin and flat. The researchers wanted to make a material thick enough so it would show …

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