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Science 7 January 2005:
Vol. 307. no. 5706, pp. 53 - 54
DOI: 10.1126/science.1100892
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Perspectives

APPLIED PHYSICS:
The Material Is the Machine

Kaushik Bhattacharya and Richard D. James

Efforts are under way to manufacture electromechanical devices at ever smaller sizes. However, standard semiconductor technology places limits on how small such machines can be. In their Perspective, Bhattacharya and James explain how martensitic materials--which can distort reversibly without any diffusion taking place--may overcome this problem. Theoretical studies and preliminary experiments suggest that such materials can act as machines themselves, without the need for complicated construction of moving parts in the device.

K. Bhattacharya is in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. E-mail: bhatta{at}caltech.edu R. D. James is in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA. E-mail: james{at}umn.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)