Native Tantalum

Tantalizing tantalum.

Element 73 was first extracted from mineral samples and described in 1802 by the Swedish chemist Anders Ekeberg. He chose the name tantalum because “when placed in the midst of acids it is incapable of taking any of them up and saturating itself with them”, in a manner reminiscent of the Greek mythological king Tantalus (pictured) who couldn’t eat or drink anything despite being surrounded by f...

Porous tantalum and tantalum oxide nanoparticles for regenerative medicine.

For centuries, inflammatory/foreign body reactions have plagued the attempts of clinicians to use metals for tissue and bone reconstructions. Since corrosion contributes to the rejection of metal by the body, an extremely bioinert metal - tantalum - has been successfully used in medicine. The outstanding biocompatibility and flexibility of tantalum established the basis for a growing cadre of c...

Characterization of Tantalum Polymer Capacitors

Solid-electrolyte tantalum capacitors were first developed and commercially produced in the 1950s. They represented a quantum leap forward in miniaturization and reliability over existing wound-foil wet electrolytic capacitors. While the solid tantalum capacitor has dramatically improved electrical performance versus wet-electrolyte capacitors, especially at low temperatures, today’s electronic...

Reliability of Solid Tantalum Capacitors

Observations on Heavily Deformed Tantalum

The deformation of metals having the body-centered cubic (BCC) crystal lattice [1] is thought to occur by the glide of dislocations with a Burgers vector of 1 /2<111> [2, 3] or by twinning [4]. The present study is concerned with the deformation of the BCC, period-6 (third-series), transition metal, Tantalum [5, 6]. Although the slip planes have been discussed and modeled since before 1970 (see...