Nitinol is a metal alloy of nickel and titanium, where the two elements are present in roughly equal atomic percentages. The name "nitinol" is derived from its composition and its place of discovery: (Nickel Titanium-Naval Ordnance Laboratory). Nitinol has unique properties, including superelasticity or pseudoelasticity and shape memory. Superelasticity means nitinol shows great flexibility and can withstand greater amounts of reversible deformations without plastic deformation than conventional metallic alloys, such as stainless steel, titanium, or cobalt-chrome alloys. Nitinols shape memory properties make it highly valuable in medical device design. Nitinol is used in various medical and industrial applications, including endoscopic devices, mechanical cable assemblies, and self-fitting products. Medical applications for nitinol include implantable cardiac devices such as replacement heart valves that can be placed using catheter delivery. Nitinols superelastic properties allow medical devices using it to compress to a lower profile when being placed in a patient using a catheter. Implants made of nitinol such as heart valves expand to their intended size and shape at the site of implantation and remain inside the patient, while nitinol therapy devices such as ablation catheters expand inside the body, treat targeted tissue, and then compress again for retrieval. Nitinol is also used to manufacture catheter tubes, guidewires, stone retrieval baskets, filters, needles, dental files, and archwires and other surgical instruments. Nitinol has been around since the early 1960s but was unavailable commercially until twenty years later due to the tight controls needed in the manufacturing process. Nitinols opportunities are almost endless with its particular shape memory function and potential future uses include developing intelligent materials that can change their properties in response to stimuli such as temperature or pressure and using Nitinol wire in robotics and other emerging technologies.