Prize for Nataliya Malyar

Poster Award at the Gordon Research Conference 2016 in Lewiston, Maine, USA

Nataliya Malyar, doctoral student in the department “Structure and Nano-/Micromechanics of Materials” in the group “Nano- and Micromechanics” received one of two prestigious Best Poster Awards for her contribution „Dislocation slip transfer through Cu grain boundaries analyzed by μLaue diffraction“ (authors: N. Malyar, J.-S. Micha, G. Dehm, C. Kirchlechner) at the Gordon Research Conference 2016 in Lewiston, Maine, USA.

Nataliya measured for the first time the required stresses which a dislocation needs to penetrate a coherent twin boundary. This was so far prevented by the fact, that not only the externally applied forces, but also the internal ones originating from the inner defect structure need to be quantified. The problem was tackled via in situ X-ray µLaue diffraction, a synchrotron based technique which was performed in collaboration with colleagues working at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, Grenoble, France). Surprisingly, Nataliya proofed that the required stresses for slip transmission can be as low as 20 MPa, a fact which was highly overestimated by previous atomistic simulations.

Gordon Research Conferences are a highlight of the scientific summer. Eight members of the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung attended the biannual “Thin Film & Small Scale Mechanical Behavior” conference having in total 120 participants. Besides twenty outstanding talks solely presented by invited speakers, the conference series is famous for extended poster presentations during which senior and junior researches share ideas and problems.

Congratulations!