A. Wilson
Butler University,
United States
Keywords: In-Space Manufacturing
Summary:
Crystalline materials are present in dozens of everyday items like personal care items, medicines, electronics, buildings, and housewares. Improvements of crystal forms can lead to better absorption of medicines, reduced waste, more durable coatings, and faster electronics. Microgravity can be an excellent tool for the fabrication of improved crystal forms from semiconductors to proteins. A review of the literature demonstrates that crystals grown in microgravity are larger, more uniform, structurally better, and have improved characteristics compared to their Earth-grown counterparts. In addition, this improvement is seen across material types (small molecules, large protein aggregates, metals, insulators, etc.). Given the breadth of examples, crystallization in a microgravity environment is likely to provide improvements to other materials as well. An analysis of databases and literature reports has allowed us to evaluate the positive impacts of a microgravity environment on the crystal growth on advanced materials (semiconductors). Metrics evaluated include crystal size, uniformity, structural quality, and performance. Updates will be provided utilizing our current data set.