This award will provide supplementary support to enable Dr. Inyoung Song of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology to conduct collaborative research with Dr. Masatake Yoshida for 10 months at the National Chemical Laboratory for Industry in Japan. They will apply Dr. Song's expertise in shock-induced chemical reactions of Ni-Al to conduct research on shock-induced chemical reactions of the reactive metallic and inorganic powder system of Nb-Si. The high pressures and temperatures associated with shock-induced reactions of porous reactive materials give rise to the creation of new materials despite a duration of only a few microseconds. The resulting extensive plastic deformation, turbulent flow, mechanical mixing, and surface cleansing yield nano-crystalline new materials such as carbynes, C3N4. Song and Yoshida will utilize different methods of spectroscopy to study and model the shock- induced chemical reactions of the reactive powder Nb-Si system and their research will perhaps lead to a method of synthesis of new materials such as C3N4 and BO6 which are as hard as diamonds.
