Materials touch across the void

Ball, Philip

doi:10.1038/nmat4464

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Published: 22 October 2015

Material witness

Materials touch across the void

Philip Ball

Nature Materials volume 14, page 1078 (2015)Cite this article

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In the hierarchy of intermolecular interactions, van der Waals (vdW) or dispersion forces used to rank pretty low. They were just the generalized, vaguely sticky background against which all the more powerful, selective and directional forces between atoms and molecules shaped matter: covalent, ionic, hydrogen bonding and so forth. They seemed to do little more than mediate physisorption and glue together, rather feebly, the sheets of graphite.

Now it's different. For one thing, improved computational methods have shown that vdW forces can supply a rather significant fraction of the cohesive energy and bulk modulus of hard solids such as silicon and sodium chloride^1,2 — as much as 10–15% in some cases. But the renaissance of fluctuation-induced forces — for that's where the vdW force originates — is not just about the little guy who turns out to be bigger than you thought. He is also better connected.

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