Shape memory and superelastic alloys: the new medical materials with growing demand.

Shape memory and superelasticity are novel properties not exhibited by common materials. In recent years, these properties and the alloys exhibiting them have found widespread use as new medical materials, in devices such as diagnostic and therapeutic catheters of different kinds, stents, needle wire localisers, orthodontic arch wires, implantable drug delivery system etc. The reasons for this trend and the future potential of these materials in medical applications will be explained in this presentation.