Matthew Fyhrie:
So, we’re at about 2300 degrees
for the surface temperature...
Miles O’Brien:
For Matthew Fyhrie,
the heat is on.
This little bead is made
of what’s called
a “rare earth oxide.”
It’s a high
temperature material.
Alex Navrotsky:
High temperature materials,
very loosely speaking,
are materials
that are like rocks.
Nothing much happens to them
until you heat them up.
Miles O’Brien:
With support from the National
Science Foundation,
chemist Alexandra Navrotsky
and a team
at the University of California,
Davis have built this instrument
to study the structure
and stability of rare earth
oxides when they reach
their melting point.
That’s when chemical reactions
can start to take place.
Alex Navrotsky:
All the interesting things
that happen in terms of
their thermodynamic properties,
in terms of their changing
from one structure
to another occur at temperatures
at white heat and above,
above let’s
1,500 degrees Centigrade.
[♪♪]
Miles O’Brien:
Rare earth oxides are a key
component in many electronics.
Cell phones, batteries,
lights, medical scan machines,
and many more devices
all contain
these relatively-poorly
understood elements.
Matthew Fyhrie:
We have erbium, lutetium,
thulium, ytterbium, neodymium;
we have yttria.
We have...oh, jeez, I should be
able to name all of them.
Miles O’Brien:
They begin their study
of the rare earths
by making them
into little beads.
Alex Navrotsky:
The problem is
at high temperature,
everything reacts
with everything.
How do you overcome
that problem?
You try to make a sample
such that it’s not in contact
with anything other than
the inner atmosphere.
How do you do that?
You levitate the sample.
[♪♪]
Miles O’Brien:
The technique is called
“drop and catch calorimetry.”
They levitate a bead,
zap it with a laser to melt it,
and then drop it.
Matthew Fyhrie:
And so what happens
is that the bead
is heated up here and it falls
and then we just [clink!]
-- like that.
Miles O’Brien:
As the bead solidifies,
sensors behind those
copper plates measure heat flow
and a property called
“heat of fusion” -
how much energy it takes
to melt the material.
Alexandra Navrotsky:
If you want to calculate
how many different materials
interact with each other,
you do this by a series
of theoretical calculations,
and these properties of the
melting have to go into that.
Miles O’Brien:
Navrotsky says insights gleaned
from this work
could have applications
for nuclear waste storage.
Rare earths are a byproduct
of nuclear fission.
Also, the aerospace industry
in the form
of new heat-resistant
materials for spacecraft,
and also improved coatings
for aircraft engines
to keep them
from overheating.
Alex Navrotsky:
We’ve built it and we
are still improving
it little by little.
Eventually perhaps
it will get commercialized,
but right now it’s a prototype,
and as far as I know,
we’re the only ones
that have anything like it.
[♪♪]
Miles O’Brien:
Matthew Fyhrie helped develop
this instrument
as an undergraduate.
For him, breaking new scientific
ground has been a revelation.
Matthew Fyhrie:
Honestly, when I first realized
it I just kind of sat there
for a minute just being like,
“This is magic!”
Because through the development
and work of others,
all those generations,
you kind of feel like --
I don’t know, I guess
I get philosophical on it,
like you actually feel like
you’re a part
of a grander movement,
something that’s really
important and bigger
than yourself.
Miles O’Brien:
Alex Navrotsky can appreciate
his enthusiasm.
She’s been a chemist
for more than 50 years,
a leading one
for much of that.
A pioneer, for sure,
but an unassuming one.
Alex Navrotsky:
Basically, I just, you know,
went my own way and did
the things I wanted to do,
and perhaps surprised myself -
look where I am.
Only in retrospect do you
realize that you were a pioneer.
You know, it’s all
in a day’s work.
Miles O’Brien:
Going to extremes,
probing the properties
of high temperature materials -
unmasking the mysteries
of rare earth oxides.
For Science Nation,
I’m Miles O’Brien.
