Liquidmetal Pioneers the Materials Frontier
Seated around a midtown Manhattan conference table packed with hedge fund managers, the pitch sounded familiar: A new materials technology that represented the latest materials frontier since steel and thermo-plastics. Developed by a scientific dream team at Caltech, this material's unique atomic structure
makes it stronger and lighter than its counterparts, augmenting a broad array of products ranging from mobile phones to golf clubs.
Is this a product of nanotechnology® Close, but not quite. But there are several reasons investors should keep an eye on Tampa, Florida's Liquidmetal Technologies (LQMT). With strong management, clients, and technology validation, we think Liquidmetal is an outstanding investment prospect. Its characteristics also boast a striking resemblance to nanostructured materials and Liquidmetal represents a blueprint that nanomaterials startups would be wise to emulate.
CEO John Kang has become the Daniel Boone of the materials landscape, corralling vast IP and traveling into uncharted territory. He founded software firm Medical Manager and sold it to WebMD
[HLTH] in 2000 for $3.2 billion. His belief that Liquidmetal could have a commercial impact as big as plastics in the 1960s drew him out of retirement: He went from being an investor to the
company's CEO in 2001 and guided it to a NASDAQ IPO last May.
Amorphous Metals
Liquidmetal is an amorphous alloy containing five elements: zirconium, beryllium, titanium, copper, and nickel. Most metals used today are alloys, mixed together to get desired properties. They form ordered crystalline structures as they solidify.
But Liquidmetal rapidly cools its alloy to create a tightly packed, but random atomic structure. While one single crystal is close to perfect, a crystalline structure is not. The problem lies in the gaps where the crystals touch each other, which cause weakness and rust. Corrosion happen when the crystals with open ends attract oxygen. But with Liquidmetal, the atoms' different sizes and random
arrangement means that no groups of atoms can easily move past one another. This makes it very dense and relatively non-corrosive and wear resistant. Liquidmetal's greater performance, however comes with
a tradeoff. It has poor electrical and thermal conductivity and melts at 900 degrees Celsius. Titanium, for example, melts at 1700 degrees Celsius. This rules out many automotive and aerospace applications.
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