US Patent 7562433 - Metal nanofiber fabrication

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7562433.html

This patent from Oxford Semiconducting Technology teaches an unusual method of nanofiber fabrication based on repeated steps of deforming and stacking a metal matrix having metal rods inserted therein. After a few iterations of these deformation and stacking steps, gold wires of 0.1'' diameter are converted to nanofibers. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of forming nanofibers of metals or metal alloys comprising the steps of:

inserting rods comprising fiber metal or alloy into holes drilled into a matrix metal billet, mechanically deforming this billet to a rod of smaller size, then restacking these smaller rods into a subsequent matrix metal billet; and

repeating the steps multiple times until the rods have been reduced to nanofibers of a desired diameter.