Photo Credit: RDMag.comYou can’t saw without producing sawdust—and that can be expensive if, for example, the “dust” comes from wafer manufacturing in the photovoltaic and semiconductor industries, where relatively high kerf loss has been accepted as an unavoidable, if highly regrettable, fact of life. But now scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg together with colleagues from the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CSIRO have developed a saw wire that is set to effect dramatic reductions in kerf loss: in place of diamond-impregnated steel wires, the researchers use ultra-thin and extremely stable threads made of carbon nanotubes coated with diamond. Read More