Earlier this year, researchers created a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MCNT) aerogel", dubbed "frozen smoke", that had a density of only 4 mg/cm³, making it the world's lightest solid material.

New metal - which is 99.9% air - is so light that it can sit atop a dandelion fluff without damaging it: Using an innovative fabrication process developed at HRL Laboratories in Malibu, California, researchers created a "micro-lattice" structure of interconnected, hollow nickel-phosphorus tubes.Courtesy Photo by Dan Little © HRL Laboratories, LLCNot anymore. Frozen smoke is no longer the world's lightest sold material, as researchers from the University of California at Irvine, HGL Laboratories, and California Institute of Technology have developed a material with a density of only 0.9 mg/cm³. This material, composed of a lattice of interconnected, hollow nickel-phosphorous tubes, is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam^TM, and is 99.99% open volume, but exhibits impressive strength and energy absorption properties. Potential applications for this material include battery electrodes, catalyst supports, and acoustic, vibration or shock energy damping.

The nanotubes that make up the 0.01% of the material that isn't air have a wall thickness of 100 nanometers - or 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. These tubes are angled to connect at nodes to form repeating, three-dimensional cells shaped similiar to an asterisk.

The research team's paper, "Ultralight Metallic Microlattices," appears in the November 18, 2011 issue of Science.

News Release: Multidisciplinary team of researchers develop world’s lightest material

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