For the occasional solderer who's a little bit on the sloppy side -- cough, like me, cough -- this could be a real godsend.
It's a glue that conducts electricity. It was developed by Hanchen Huang, a professor at Northeastern University, and two students, according to the article informing us about this product. See Researchers’ Metallic Glue may Stick it to Soldering and Welding. Here's a how-it-works excerpt:
“It’s like welding or soldering but without the heat,” says Huang, who is professor and chair in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.
“Both ‘metal’ and ‘glue’ are familiar terms to most people, but their combination is new and made possible by unique properties of metallic nanorods–infinitesimally small rods with metal cores that we have coated with the element indium on one side and galium on the other. These coated rods are arranged along a substrate like angled teeth on a comb: There is a bottom ‘comb’ and a top ‘comb.’ We then interlace the ‘teeth.’ When indium and galium touch each other, they form a liquid. The metal core of the rods acts to turn that liquid into a solid. The resulting glue provides the strength and thermal/electrical conductance of a metal bond. We recently received a new provisional patent for this development through Northeastern University.”
It's not clear how they get the nanorods lined up just right so that they interlace, but hopefully they do it without requiring much user involvement in the process.
Meanwhile, here's a link to their company: mesoglue.com. And here's a link to their introductory video.
If it works the way they say it will this would indeed be a Super Glue.
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