A team of engineers claims to have created the world's lightest material.

　　The substance is made out of tiny hollow metallic tubes arranged into a micro-lattice - a criss-crossing diagonal pattern with small open spaces between the tubes.

　　The researchers say the material is 100 times lighter than Styrofoam and has "extraordinarily high energy absorption" properties.

　　Potential uses include next-generation batteries and shock absorbers.

　　The research was carried out at the University of California, Irvine, HRL Laboratories and the California Institute of Technology and is published in the latest edition of Science.

　　"The trick is to fabricate a lattice of interconnected hollow tubes with a wall thickness 1,000 times thinner than a human hair", said lead author Dr Tobias Schaedler.

　　The resulting material has a density of 0.9 milligrams per cubic centimetre.

　　By comparison the density of silica aerogels - the world's lightest solid materials - is only as low as 1.0mg per cubic cm.

　　The metallic micro-lattices have the edge because they consist of 99.99% air and of 0.01% solids.

　　The engineers say the material's strength derives from the ordered nature of its lattice design.

　　By contrast, other ultralight substances, including aerogels and metallic foams, have random cellular structures. This means they are less stiff, strong, energy absorptive or conductive than the bulk of the raw materials that they are made out of.

　　The engineers suggest practical uses for the substance include thermal insulation, battery electrodes and products that need to dampen sound, vibration and shock energy.

　　据英国广播公司（BBC）11月18日报道，近日一个工程师小组宣称已经造出了世界上最轻的物质。

　　这种物质是由微小的空心金属管排列在微型格子里制作成的——在这种微型格子上，金属小管呈对角线型纵横交错地排列，管子之间有微小的开放的空间。

　　研究人员说这种材料比聚苯乙烯泡沫塑料还要轻100倍，并且具有“相当高的吸收能量”的特性。

　　可能的用途包括用于制造新一代的电池和减震器。

　　这项研究由加州大学欧文分校、休斯研究实验室以及加州理工学院共同完成，研究成果发表在最新一期的《科学》杂志上。

　　项目领导托比亚斯·斯卡德勒博士说：“这些中空管的管壁厚度不足人类发丝的千分之一，而这项技术的核心技巧就是把中空管相互连接在一起构成格子。”

　　制作出的这种材料密度仅为每立方厘米0.9毫克。

　　相比之下，世界上最轻的固体材料——硅土气凝胶的密度最小也要每立方厘米1.0毫克。

　　这种金属微型格子之所以有这样的优势是因为它是由99.99%的空气和0.01%的固体组成的。

　　工程师说，这种材料的强度来源于它格状设计的有序本质。

　　相比之下，其它超轻型物质，包括气凝胶和金属泡沫材料，分子结构都比较随意。这也意味着它们在硬度、强度、能量吸收或传导能力方面比制造它们的原材料要差。

　　工程师建议，这种材料可以实际应用于制造热绝缘物质，蓄电池极板，以及用在一些需要减噪减震及缓冲的产品上。