One of the exciting prospects with layered materials is the
possibility of "intercalating" them. Intercalation is a phenomenon where
guest molecules are introduced in between the layers of the host solid which are held
together merely by Van der Waals forces. An example is illustrated in the figure
below:
Intercalation can alter several properties of host materials and
should be considered as one example of "nano-engineering" or atomic scale
engineering. We have used this process of ontercalation in a dichalcogenide material
TaS2 to produce engineered materials with extremely high acoustic damping properties.
The figure below are results of acoustic damping measurements in Amine intercalated
TaS2. Also provided are the damping of the host or reference material.
(From: E.D. Brandner, A.Munier, J.M. Zhu, B.A. Averill and B.S. Shivaram, Journal of
Materials Science, 1998).
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