What is Special Today?

One of our patents applied for four years ago at NIT Rourkela has been granted today. What can be more exciting than this? What it does: It can help you encode information based on temperatures using NitiNol (Nickel Titanium Alloy) and has many applications, including its usage in security systems.

What is special about the nickel-titanium alloy? It is a shape-memory alloy. It can remember things, i.e., it can memorize shapes.

Imagine you make the shape of the letter “S”, the first letter of your boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s name, using a metal wire made out of this alloy which is specifically trained in the lab (through a series of processes) at a certain temperature, say 75 C to memorize the shape of S. Now you bring it back to room temperature (25 C) and change the shape to another letter “X”. You give this X shaped item as a gift to your boyfriend or girlfriend on his or her birthday. He or she wouldn’t be impressed (sounding like “Ex”). Obviously. Now, what do you do? Heat it to 75 C in front of him or her like a pro using a precision heater. When the temperature reaches exactly 75 C, it will suddenly change its shape from X to S, the first letter of his or her beloved name.

Grateful to our coinventors, Dr. Ajit Behera, and Raj Manik. The patent does much more than that. I was trying to bring the story home.