Hello I’m Dr. Peter Muller and I’m a professor of Material Science and Engineering at Boise State University.
Have you watched the 1991 science fiction thriller Terminator 2 with Robert Patrick as advanced terminator T-1000 liquid metal robot? Did you ask yourself if such a metal muscle machine might ever roam our streets?
In the magnetic materials laboratory we make metal muscle and we build metal muscle machines from the magnetic shaped memory alloy nickel manganese gallium. This alloy deforms when exposed to a dynamic magnetic field. It flexes like a muscle. All our activities revolve about nickel manganese gallium. We grow nickel magnesium single crystals and develop surface treatment processes which give the alloy its rubber like before therefore mobility. And we design magneto mechanical testing devices since devices for the study of metal muscle don’t exist on the market. And then we started the mechanisms which give life to our material on the atomic scale with high resolution transmission electron microscopy and we characterize the magneto mechanical properties with our in-house made devices. And then we make metal muscle machines. Our magnetic shaped memory micro pump transports fluids at nano liter resolution. It delivers drugs to the brain of rats in studies on schizophrenia and enables cancer research through the stabilization of micro bio reactors.
I envisioned the Treasure Valley as the home of a metal muscle industry contributing to Idaho’s economy. To commercialize the metal muscle micro pump we found in Shaw Mountain Technology in 2015. The name refers to a peak just a few miles outside Boise and signifies an enduring presence in the state of Idaho. On the one hand from a materials point of view we are narrowly focused, nickel magnesium gallium that’s it. On the other hand we go at a full stretch from making the material from its raw elements and commercializing it through a spin of company. In that sense we are very broad and we collaborate with a wide range of experts.
Are you interested? I would love to meet and talk. Thank you for watching.