Miniature hollow spheres

Production engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany have manufactured 2mm to 10mm diameter metallic hollow spheres that could be used for an array of high-tech applications.

The team claims that it had been nearly impossible to produce metallic hollow spheres of this size before this latest development.

The hollow spheres, which were developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing and Advanced Materials (IFAM) in Dresden, can be used to make magnetic ball valves.

These valves would be integral parts of new drive technologies for more fuel-efficient aircraft and automobiles in the future.

For a magnetic ball valve to react quickly, the balls must be as light as possible. The same applies to moving bearings rapidly.

Until now it has only been possible to produce balls of this size as solid spheres, but a solid body is relatively heavy and therefore reacts slowly in a ball valve.