Highlights

Apr 6, 2010

Crack Interaction With Microstructure: An in-situ TEM Study

K.S. Kumar, Division of Engineering, Brown University

Understanding crack growth behavior in complex materials is critical to material design for damage tolerance. An advancing crack, by virtue of its stress field, modifies the microstructure ahead of it including include changes in dislocation density, interfaces modification, decohesion of interfaces, void nucleation, and phase transformation . Such changes in microstructure can in turn have a reciprocal effect on the advancing crack. The problem is hierarchical in length scale and must be examined at the continuum, mesoscopic and atomic scales.

Apr 6, 2010

Competing grain-boundary and dislocation-mediated mechanisms in plastic strain recovery in nanocrystalline Aluminum

Huajian Gao, Xiaoyan Li, Yujie Wei Division of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912

Apr 6, 2010

Characterizing the resistance generated by a molecular bond as it is forcibly separated

LB Freund, Brown University, Division of Engineering

Apr 6, 2010

Size dependence of flow stress in amorphous nanowires at temperatures near glass transition

Y. Wei, A.F. Bower, H. Gao Division of Engineering, Brown University

The unique microstructure and properties of amorphous materials make them attractive candidates for applications such as precision components in micro-electro-mechanical systems. There is consequently great interest in fabricating sub-micron and nanoscale components of amorphous materials. This will require a thorough understanding of their properties.

Apr 1, 2010

UNL Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (2014)

Resistive Ferroelectric Switching at the Nanoscale

A. Gruverman, H. Lu, Y. Wang, E. Y. Tsymbal (Nebraska MRSEC); D. Wu (North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC); H. W. Jang, C.M. Folkman, D. Felker, M. Rzchowski, C.-B. Eom (University of Wisconsin-Madison); M. Ye. Zhuravlev (Kurnakov Institute for General and Inorganic Chemistry, RAS, Moscow, Russia)

Apr 1, 2010

UNL Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (2014)

Molecular Legos

G. Rojas, X. Chen, Yi Gao, X.-G. Zeng, P. Dowben, A. Enders (Nebraska MRSEC) W. Choe (UNL Chemistry)

Mar 30, 2010

UChicago Materials Research Center (2014)

Imaging Quantum states of Bosonic atoms

Nathan Gemelke, Xibo Zhang, Chen-Lung Hung, Cheng Chin

By tuning the optical lattice depth or the interaction between cold atoms, a weakly-interacting atomic bosonic superfluid can be converted into a strongly correlated Mott insulator. Near the phase boundary, quantum criticality, resembling that of Ising-type

Mar 29, 2010

UChicago Materials Research Center (2014)

MRSEC-Inspired Exhibits at Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry

Science Storms, the newest permanent exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry, opened to the public on March 18th. MRSEC graduate students, postdocs, research staff and faculty assisted with the compilation of an inventory of chemical reactions for the Interactive Periodic Tables. In addition, aspects of granular materials research in IRGs 1 and 2 are featured prominently. MRSEC members, Heinrich Jaeger and Steve Sibener participated in key advisory groups for this new exhibit.

Mar 17, 2010

NYU Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (2014)

Genetically-Engineered Protein Materials and Self-Assembly : Video

The video describes the Montclare lab research efforts to fabricate nano-scaled self-assembling proteins as materials. It focuses on the use of bacteria as the synthetic powerhouse for soft materials synthesis and features the self-assembly behavior of these biologically-inspired materials for potential use in therapeutic delivery and regenerative medicine. Watch video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbzpHRgrRBY

Mar 1, 2010

Carnegie Mellon University MRSEC (2005)

Effect of Particle Additives on the Texture Evolution in Block Copolymer Blends

Michael Bockstaller CMU MRSEC, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA

Block copolymer/nanoparticle (BCP/NP) composites have attracted interest because of the unique opportunities for tuning the properties of hybrid materials arising from the control of orientation and location of particle fillers within the copolymer matrix. However, quiescent organized block copolymer microstructures are not macroscopically uniform but rather exhibit ‘polycrystal-type’ texture with grain boundary defects that disrupt the long-range periodicity.