Liquidmetal Technologies Inc (LQMT)

[chipboarder]

Back when the initial work was done with BMGs, it was necessary to cool the molten alloys extremely fast to keep the atoms from rearranging into a crystalline structure and destroying the amorphous nature. The cooling rates were 10^6 degrees a second and was key to the part size limitation.

As development progressed, there was a better understanding of the interplay of the various atomic radii and a mechanism to prevent crystal structure formation by the proper choice of components opened the “window”for process conditions. This approaches the problem structurally instead of using extreme process conditions. That is why larger parts and higher production speeds became possible.

Why bring this up??? The evolution of the technology may have made it easier to do the 3D so it’s not quite so tricky.