Nanoporous amorphous carbon nanopillars with lightweight, ultrahigh strength, large fracture strain, and high damping capability.

Simultaneous achievement of lightweight, ultrahigh strength, large fracture strain, and high damping capability is challenging because some of these mechanical properties are mutually exclusive. Here, we utilize self-assembled polymeric carbon precursor materials in combination with scalable nano-imprinting lithography to produce nanoporous carbon nanopillars. Remarkably, nanoporosity induced via sacrificial template significantly reduces the mass density of amorphous carbon to 0.66 ~ 0.82 g cm⁻³ while the yield and fracture strengths of nanoporous carbon nanopillars are higher than those of most engineering materials with the similar mass density. Moreover, these nanopillars display both elastic and plastic behavior with large fracture strain. A reversible part of the sp²-to-sp³ transition produces large elastic strain and a high loss factor (up to 0.033) comparable to Ni-Ti shape memory alloys. The irreversible part of the sp²-to-sp³ transition enables plastic deformation, leading to a large fracture strain of up to 35%. These findings are substantiated using simulation studies. None of the existing structural materials exhibit a comparable combination of mass density, strength, deformability, and damping capability. Hence, the results of this study illustrate the potential of both dense and nanoporous amorphous carbon materials as superior structural nanomaterials. Simultaneous achievement of lightweight and high strength is challenging. Here, authors combine self-assembly of nanoscale block copolymer and carbonization to create nanoporous amorphous carbon materials, which have the density of elastomers or plastic but the strength of metals or alloys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]