Richard Mille

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Science as art! RM027 and RM050 carbon nanotube casing: science fiction or science fact!

About a year and a half ago I was sitting with Richard in the lounge at the Le Mans Classic and noted a new watch on his wrist. Sure it was the RM011 movement, but this was a different case; something that I was later told was an experimental piece. One of the issues that Richard had been working on was the case rigidity for the RM027 that was going into production. I now know that the RM011 he had one was also a precursor to the RM050 that was released at this years’ SIHH. The new case involved new material science, and a recent article in Science magazine brought this material science to life.





When introducing watch cases that are injected with carbon, there is a look of incredulity on peoples’ faces when you tell them that the case is a polymer injected with carbon nanotubes. It sounds as if someone has once again swallowed a bunch of words from the latest science fiction book, and regurgitated them on a page. However, in this instance, the science is very real and is very smart. Looks inane, looks almost ‘Swatch like’, but it is very real and recent photographs show how real it is! By using carbon nanotubes Richard does show himself to be at the very forefront of where material science meets haute horologerie and with it, producing watches that might look innocuous and ordinary, but in fact contain more science than others. Richard always stressed a love of technique and moving onto carbon nanotubes shows how technique governs over using the ‘usual’ materials.



So the first point at issue is what is a carbon nanotube? Carbon nanotubes are not carbon fibre, or forged carbon, or carbon nanofibre. A carbon nanotube is what is known as a fullerene structure, which also includes the spherical buckyballs. The carbon atoms are arranged in terms of their bonding at very exact intervals throughout the structure. Carbon nanotubes, as their name suggests, are derived from their long hollow structure with the walls formed by one-atom-thick sheets of carbon, called graphene. These sheets are rolled at specific and discrete angles, and the combination of the rolling angle and radius decides the nanotube properties. There are a multiple number of uses for the carbon nanotubes from mechanical and material, to electrical (conductor).



In Richard’s world, what attracted him to using carbon nanotubes are that they are the strongest and stiffest materials yet discovered in terms of tensile strength and elasticity. This strength results from the covalent sp2 bonds formed between the individual carbon atoms. In 2000, a multi-walled carbon nanotube was tested to have a tensile strength of 63 gigapascals (GPa); in other words that we can understand, this translates into the ability to endure tension of a weight equivalent to 6422 kg on a cable with cross-section of 1 mm2. Within the structure of the carbon nanotube, the atoms themselves are spaced at precise intervals and with a precise hexagonal pattern. The resulting structure is super light, but super strong.



Normally, the structures of such nanotubes cannot be seen with normal conditions. But recently in the US, in Science magazine, a competition was launched entitled “Science as art!”. One of the winners was a team from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in the US that had managed to provide an illustration of actual carbon nanotubes of various lengths under a powerful electron microscope. The result is something that resembles a forest of carbon nanotubes across a bleak landscape. What the photograph actually shows is how the carbon nanotubes look exactly like their theoretical construction. Remember that this is a photograph of objects that are a molecule in thickness for the strands.



www.sciencemag.org

The case for the newly released RM050 is a polymer-resin injected with carbon nanotubes. Sounds PR blah blah, but they do exist and are in fact light and tensile strong creating a case with the same properties. It might sound science fiction, but the science fact of it all is that Richard is using cutting edge technology to create light, strong, and robust cases for his movements. It is where Richard is at his best, where cutting edge material science meets haute horologerie.

Andrew H