Supervisor: Phillip Hoffmann

The 19^th of July this summer three American groups collaboratively published an article in Nature about a self-healing metal, i.e., a metal that "repairs" structural damage experienced from mechanical stress. In the article they claim the discovery of self-healing properties in their sample based on both observation and subsequent simulation.

The vision of self-healing materials covers a broad range of possible applications and self-healing has been observed for non-metals. Indeed, self-healing concrete was already employed during the Roman empire. In this colloquium I will give an overview of the history and definition of self-healing materials as well as explain the details of this new article. I will cover the physics behind the discovery, qualitatively, and I will give a a brief summary of the equipment used for the observation.

Additionally, I will give a possible explanation to why, this self-healing property was not discovered sooner and how it might prove useful in future applications and research.