Scaling Effects and Applications of High Porosity Nanoporous Metal Foams

Dr. Andrea M. Hodge
Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering
University of Southern California, Los Angeles

A comprehensive study of nanoporous Au foams will be presented in order to elucidate on the relationship between mechanical properties, relative density and foam ligament size at the nanoscale. Scaling equations for yield strength and Young's Modulus were investigated using 20% to 42% relative density foams with ligament sizes ranging from 10 to 940 nm. Overall, this study demonstrates that, at the nanoscale, the foam strength is no longer governed by the relative density, but rather by the size of the ligaments; while the elastic modulus seems to be independent of the ligament size. Experimental results show that nanoporous foams present a type of high strength, low density material. In addition, applications of naoporous foams for Surface-enhanced Raman-scattering (SERS) spectroscopy and as catalysts for low temperature oxidation of carbon monoxide will be discussed.