Okay, solid state thenPoint is, besides this technology, conductors are exclusively crystalline conductors in solid state electronic devices.
Respectfully disagree. Many conductors are crystalline, others are not. Crystallinity may change the conductance of a material, it is not the overriding factor controlling conductivity. It is really a complex topic.
Conduction is at heart a matter of having electrons free to move about in a material. We can simplify our view of a metal by thinking of it as a gas of electrons moving freely in a metal responding to applied electric fields. This is why most metals look more or less the same (shiny metallic appearance). Light reflects off the freely moving electrons producing a shiny surface.
Even if a metal is crystalline when formed it may lose all or part of that crystallinity due to mechanical deformation. Rolling, stretching or otherwise deforming a metal may cause the crystal grains to change shape or become aligned or may cause them to be destroyed all together. Soft metals like gold, lead, tin are notorious for this.
You can use an EBSD device in an electron microscope to view and map these crystal grains. One of the biggest problems in this field is preparing a sample with a clean surface without damaging or destroying the crystal structure. Ion polishers use a low angle spray of argon ions to blast away the surface atoms without doing much damage to the underlying structure.
Apple hooking up with Liquidmetal seems like a perfect match. LM makes a very high tech engineered metal for special needs and Apple designs products with a passionate attention to detail that could use these materials better than most other CE companies. Can't wait to see what results.
