MPIE Colloquium

High-performance magnets for efficient energy conversion

Date: Jun 24, 2026
Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Dagmar Goll
Aalen University: Senior member of the management team at the Institute for Materials Research (IMFAA), Chair of Physics of Magnetic Materials
Location: Max Planck Institute for Sustaianble Materials
Room: Large Conference Room No. 203
Host: on invitation of Prof. Dierk Raabe

Efficient energy converters require high-performance magnetic materials such as rare earth permanent magnets. Due to the criticality of rare earth metals, the major challenges are the reduction or avoidance of those elements in permanent magnets and to optimize the microstructure to approach theoretical predictions of micromagnetism. For better sustainability, it is furthermore expected for the materials to secure long-lasting use with subsequent recycling options. Possible solutions include: (1) In-depth quality assessment of magnets: A good process quality is the prerequisite for a long magnet lifetime. Defects cause premature demagnetization and thus aging of the magnets. Different microscopy techniques in combination with quantitative image analysis as well as component testing are developed as tools for quality assurance. (2) Tailoring and optimization of materials to the requirements of the electrical machine: Starting from well-known microstructure-property relations the magnetic properties can be tailored from a sustainability and economic point of view. Ce-substituted magnets and directly recycled magnets are particularly promising. (3) Identification of new materials and new technologies: Bulk high-throughput methods allow to explore completely new hard magnetic phases. The extent to which laser powder bed fusion additive manufacturing can lead to good magnetic properties and new perspectives needs to be examined. The presentation gives insight into the different solutions. [more]

Ferroelectric Oxides for Sustainable Nanotechnology

Colloquia Series on Sustainable Metallurgy

Date: Jun 23, 2026
Time: 04:00 PM - 05:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Dennis Meier, Functional Ferroic Systems, University of Duisburg-Essen
Location: University Duisburg-Essen, Lotharstraße 1, 47057 Duisburg
Room: MG 272
Host: on invitation of Prof. Christof Schulz
Topic: Lectures

[more]

Extreme mechanics and additive manufacturing of materials across scales

Date: Jun 1, 2026
Time: 01:00 PM - 02:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Dr. Yu Zou
Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada
Location: Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials
Room: Large Conference Room No. 203
Host: on invitation of Prof. Gerhard Dehm

Innovations in material development and manufacturing processes for extreme conditions are necessary and urgent for many emerging applications. Towards this vision, this presentation will focus on the exploration of mechanical behavior and manufacturing processes of materials, with an emphasis on metals and semiconductors, across many length- and time-scales, including the following topics: (i) Controlling dislocation motion and plasticity in semiconductors using non-mechanical stimuli (high electric field or illumination); (ii) Design of high-strength and thermal stability of nanostructured high-entropy alloys using a high-throughput strategy and electrodeposition; (iii) laser-based additive manufacturing and cold spray additive manufacturing of titanium alloys, high-entropy alloys and multi-materials; (iv) machine learning for microstructure design and process optimization. [more]

11th APT User Meeting 2024

Start: May 19, 2026
End: May 21, 2026
Location: Max Planck Institute for Sustaianble Materials
Host: Prof. Baptiste Gault, Dr. Tim Schwarz & Dr. Aparna Saksena
Contact: t.schwarz@mpie.de

We’re pleased to announce the 11th edition of our world-famous NRW-APT user meeting, hosted at the Max-Planck-Institute für Nachhaltige Materialien from 19th to 21st May 2026. As a follow-up to the success of the 10th NRW user-meeting, we aim to bring again together APT users from not only NRW, but also from all across Europe! We expect an emphasis on:cryo-APT and cryo-developments for specimens preparation Bio-minerals and bio-materialsAPT for hydrogen analysis and related applicationsAPT for energy materialsNanostructure in metals and semiconductorsmachine-learning for APT data processingFundamentals of field evaporation and Field ion microscopyAdvancement in correlative techniques [more]

The Promise of Halide-Perovskite Solar Photovoltaics

Date: May 12, 2026
Time: 02:00 PM - 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Nitin P. Padture
Otis E. Randall University Professor, School of Engineering; Director, Initiative for Sustainable Energy; Brown University, USA
Location: Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials
Room: Large Conference Room No. 203
Host: on invitation of Prof. Dierk Raabe / Prof. Gerhard Dehm

Renewable electricity from solar photovoltaics (PV), combined with low-cost large-scale storage, is likely to play a dominating role in decarbonizing the expanding global power sector in the long run. For example, the global deployment of PV is targeted at ~75 TW installed capacity by 2050, from the current (2025) ~2.5 TW. While currently used PV technologies are efficient, reliable, and relatively cheap, there is, and always will be, insatiable demand for new PV technologies that are more efficient and cost-effective, and importantly, have a smaller ‘carbon-footprint.’ In this context, the promising new PV technology based on a fascinating class of halide-perovskite materials has the potential to meet all those requirements. Perovskite thin-film PV can be mechanically rigid or flexible, where the latter lightweight PV are more versatile with the potential to power internet-of-things, vehicles, satellites, portable supplies, etc., in addition to rooftop and utility-scale applications. While the record power-conversion efficiency of perovskite PV now rivals that of conventional silicon PV, durability and mechanical reliability are becoming ‘bottleneck’ challenges in perovskite PV. To address some of these technical hurdles in the path towards their commercialization, we have researched several rationally-designed microstructural and interfacial tailoring approaches. These include grain-coarsening, grain-boundary functionalization, and engineering of interfaces and substrates. Most importantly, these approaches are designed to not only enhance the PVs’ mechanical performance but also increase efficiency and improve durability simultaneously. The scientific rationales for these approaches will be discussed, together with the presentation of current results. [more]

Advancing In-Situ and ex-Situ Transmission Electron Microscopy with Low Dose Focal Series Reconstruction and 4D‑STEM

Date: Apr 9, 2026
Time: 01:30 PM - 02:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Dr. Idan Biran
Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
Location: Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials
Room: BDS Seminar room
Host: on invitation of Dr. Siyuan Zhang / Prof. Christina Scheu

Recent advances in transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have pushed spatial resolution into the 0.5 Å regime, shifting imaging from an instrument-limited to an object-limited discipline and enabling the direct visualization of individual atoms and molecules. However, the structures and dynamics of many functional materials, particularly catalysts, are strongly influenced by their local environment, creating challenges for imaging under conventional high‑vacuum and high‑dose conditions. In this seminar, two complementary developments in instrumentation and imaging methodology will be presented, each expanding the capabilities of TEM for both in‑situ and ex‑situ studies. First, open‑cell TEM, also known as environmental TEM (ETEM), will be described. The VISION PRIME platform, built on an ultra-stable SPECTRA ETEM system, will be introduced. Through the integration of a 5th-order aberration corrector, monochromated illumination, differential pumping that enables operation at 10-20 mbar gas pressure, and direct electron detection, a 0.5 Å information limit is maintained even in gas atmospheres. Using Young’s fringes and exit wave phase reconstruction, atomic‑resolution visualization of gas–surface interactions on a Au nanoparticle at 1 mbar N₂ has been demonstrated, revealing gas-dependent variations in atomic column widths and enabling operando studies of catalytic processes. Second, examples of exit wave phase reconstruction obtained using a low dose focal series reconstruction (LD‑FSR) methodology will be presented. This approach enables 1.6 Å‑resolution imaging of organic materials with limited radiation damage to the sample. By rapidly recording hundreds of low dose frames at cryogenic temperatures and reconstructing the exit plane wavefunction, aberration-corrected phase images up to the microscope’s information limit are obtained. In this way, access is provided to organic crystal structures and aperiodic features that would otherwise be obscured under strong defocus conditions and low signal-to-noise ratio. When combined with complementary methods such as density functional theory, reliable determination of molecular packing and local structural distortions is enabled directly from real-space images. Finally, a combined approach employing LD-FSR and 4D-STEM for imaging sensitive organic crystalline polymers will be demonstrated. [more]

Mechanical and Microstructural Control of Dendrite Initiation and Li Plating on Oxide and Sulfide Solid Electrolytes

Date: Mar 20, 2026
Time: 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
Speaker: Prof. Wendy Gu
Standard university, USA
Location: Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials
Room: Large Conference Room No. 203
Host: on invitation of Yuwei Zhang / Prof. Gerhard Dehm

Lithium metal solid-state batteries have high potential for safety, energy density, and charging rate beyond that of Li-ion batteries. A major challenge for lithium metal solid-state batteries is the formation of lithium dendrites across the solid electrolyte during cycling, which leads to short-circuiting and mechanical failure of the cell. The reason that dendrites form is not fully understood, but evidence shows that dendrites could initiate either at the surface or within the interior of the solid electrolyte. Here, I present our use of in-situ mechanical and electrochemical testing to investigate dendrite initiation and propagation. Scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy are used to observe nano to millimeter-scale structural changes in garnet-type oxide solid electrolytes (LLZO) and glassy sulfide electrolytes under mechanical loads and electrochemical charging. We find that dendrite propagation follows Weibull statistics in polycrystalline LLZO. Ag-doped LLZO shows increased resistance to dendrites under elevated mechanical loads due to compressive stress effects at the LLZO surface. Investigations on single crystal LLZO demonstrate that the role of surface flaws in the absence of grain boundaries, and that Li plating can be achieved over large areas. Confocal raman spectroscopy is used to understand chemical heterogeneities within a glassy sulfide electrolyte control the mechanical failure. Lastly, I present the effect of biaxial compressive stress on dendrite initiation and propagation in LLZO. The biaxial compressive stress is applied orthogonal to the electric field generation, and serves to close cracks that extend from the anode, through the electrolyte, to the cathode. This allows lithium symmetric cells to be cycled at current densities up to 100 mA/cm2, for >10,000 cycles, and provides evidence that lithium plating occurs within the interior of LLZO when surface dendrite initiation is suppressed. [more]

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