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Letter

Nature Materials 6, 418–423 (1 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/nmat1913

Modulus|[ndash]|density scaling behaviour and framework architecture of nanoporous self-assembled silicas

Hongyou Fan , Christopher Hartshorn , Thomas Buchheit , David Tallant , Roger Assink , Regina Simpson , Dave J. Kissel , Daniel J. Lacks , Salvatore Torquato & C. Jeffrey Brinker

Natural porous materials such as bone, wood and pith evolved to maximize modulus for a given density. For these three-dimensional cellular solids, modulus scales quadratically with relative density.