ADVANCES IN MATERIAL RESEARCHES UNDER MICROGRAVITY 2000-2002

The Engineering of Chinese Spacecraft provides Chinese scientists of materials great opportunity in the experiments for preparing materials under microgravity. On board of Spacecraft-Shenzhou No.3 (SZ-3), alloys and semiconductors, such as Al Mg2Si, Nd60Al10Fe20Co10, Pd40Ni10Cu30P20, Al-Al3Ni, GaMnSb, Bi12SiO20:Ce, and Cd0.96Zn0.04Te:Ge, were prepared. SZ-3 successfully returned to the earth on April 1, 2002. Profiting from SZ-3, great progress has been made in the researches on ma terials under microgravity in space. The quartz ampoules containing the materials grown on board of SZ-3 were shown in CFig. 1 (see the Appendix). The properties of the materials prepared on board of SZ-3 are still under investigation.……