Scientific Events

Materials play a crucial role in driving the twin transition, a key strategy of the European Union to address current and future environmental challenges. Currently, improving the efficiency of solar cells and the capacity of battery storage is essential for achieving a Net Zero Carbon society, underlining the growing demand for innovative materials. Nanotechnology played a major role in development of the necessary hardware, such as sensors, data storage systems, and actuators, needed for advanced digital solutions. Still, the push to enhance performance and replace outdated technologies is accelerating the research into always-new materials and solutions. Performance-oriented development also expanded the range of metals utilized by humanity, leading to a scenario where a single smartphone necessitates a broader spectrum of elements than the entire biosphere [1], [2]. Due to the fast development, the raw materials for such technologies are changing by day - a pace that the supply chain cannot follow satisfactory. In addition, the environmental impact of raw materials production, especially metals, varies significantly. For example, steel production—accounting for 1.9 billion tons annually—contributes to 8% of global CO₂ emissions, but its per mass environmental footprint is one of the lowest (2 kg of CO₂ per kg of primary steel, and 0.7 kg of CO₂ when recycled). In contrast, the production of platinum, crucial element for hydrogen economy with a limited production of 200 t/y, is one of the most carbon-intensive (60 tons of CO₂ per kg of Pt). Limiting the challenge of the Green and digital revolutions to the simple cost-performance paradigm would be somehow repeating the mistake of the Oil Age during which the resource was considered as infinite and the impact on the environment had been long time neglected. Making the twin transition successful requires changing the mindset of innovators (from lower TRL) to a binary trade-off (price-performance) towards multi-criteria decision-making [3]. In the presentation, we will introduce a straightforward multi-criteria assessment methodology for evaluating the sustainability of metallic alloys. [more]

The use of nanoindentation-based techniques to study high strain rate deformation behavior of materials is of immense scientific interest because it enables investigating the strain rate dependence of individual grains and small-scale structures. While nanoindentation impact tests, capable of reaching high strain rates, have been used for over two decades, they suffer from lack of indentation profile control and rapidly varying strain rate during impact. This makes extraction of reliable mechanical properties, for e.g. hardness, and determination of the representative strain rate rather difficult. It is only recently that advances in nanoindentation instrumentation have enabled reaching constant strain rates > 100 s^-1 in both micropillar compression [1] and indentation [2]. In this talk, I will present our progress in performing controlled, constant strain rate nanoindentation tests up to 10⁴ s^-1 for reliable extraction of mechanical properties and deformation activation parameters, particularly at high strain rates. Typically, high speeds and fast unloading rates excite the resonance of the nanoindenter, which affects the extracted hardness and modulus values. Novel experimental protocols and calibration procedures were developed to circumvent this issue, which will be discussed. Case studies of high strain rate nanoindentation testing on multiple material systems – single and ultrafine grained metals, amorphous glasses and polymers – will be presented. Deformation activation parameters, for e.g. activation volumes and strain rate sensitivity exponents, were successfully extracted at high strain rates to probe possible changes in the underlying deformation mechanism(s). It is hoped that this study will pave the way for routine high strain rate nanoindentation testing. [more]

Nanoscale metal-graphene nanolayered composites are known to have ultra-high strength due to the ability of graphene to effectively block dislocations from penetrating through the metal-graphene interface. The same graphene interface can deflect generated cracks, thereby serving as a toughening mechanism. In this talk, the role of graphene interfaces in strengthening and toughening the Cu-graphene nanolayered composite will be discussed. In-situ TEM tensile testing of Cu-graphene showed that the dislocation plasticity was strongly confined by the graphene interfaces and the grain boundaries. The weak interfacial bonding between Cu-graphene induced an interesting stress decoupling effect, which resulted in independent deformation of each Cu layer. MD simulations confirmed such independent deformation of each Cu layer and also showed that the graphene interfaces effectively block crack propagation as delamination occurs at the Cu- graphene interfaces to allow for elastic strain energy dissipation. Bending fatigue testing was also conducted on Cu-graphene nanolayered composites that indicated ~5 times enhancement in robustness against fatigue-induced damage in comparison to the conventional Cu only thin film. Such an enhancement in reliability under cyclic bending was found to be due to the ability of the graphene interface to stop fatigue-induced crack propagations through thickness of the thin film, which is contrary to how a metal only thin film fails under cyclic loadings. [more]

In the search for new energy sources, nuclear fusion of deuterium and tritium is one of the most promising options for human kind. However, thermonuclear fusion has set an enormous challenge to theory, experiment and technology due to the harsh environment that will take place in a future nuclear fusion reactor: 14 MeV neutron irradiation, helium accumulation and hydrogen isotope (HI) implantation, taking place at the same time and mutually influencing each other. Tritium self-sufficiency is one of the major prerequisites. For this reason, a macroscopic understanding of the phenomena involved is needed in order to predict transport and retention of fuel in future devices. I will give an overview on the knowledge gained so far for tungsten, the material chosen because of its good thermal conductivity, high melting point, low sputtering yield and low HI retention. I will show how laboratory studies addressing the synergism between displacement damage creation and presence of HIs [1-3] help in understanding the phenomena and to what extent they can be used to extrapolate to a future fusion reactor. I will also present new developments of ion beam techniques in order to study lattice disorder and position of trapped deuterium in the tungsten lattice. [more]

Development of innovative characterization tools is of paramount importance to advance the frontiers of science and technology in nearly all areas of research. In order to overcome the limitations of individual techniques, correlative microscopy has been recognized as a powerful approach to obtain complementary information about the investigated materials. High-resolution imaging techniques such as Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) or Helium Ion Microscopy (HIM) offer excellent spatial resolution. However, the analytical techniques associated with TEM such as Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) or Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) are inadequate for the analysis of (i) isotopes, (ii) trace concentrations (< 0.1 at. % or < 1000 ppm) and (iii) light elements (H, Li, B). Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS), on the other hand, has several advantages such as the possibility to analyse elements and isotopes of all elements of the periodic table while also providing high-sensitivity to detect even trace concentrations. However, the main drawbacks of SIMS are (i) difficulty in quantification and (ii) lateral resolution of SIMS imaging is fundamentally limited by ion-solid interaction volume to ~10 nm. Owing to the complementary strengths of SIMS imaging, we developed new in-situ and operando instrumentations for correlative microscopy combining electron microscopy and SIMS imaging. In this presentation, we will discuss the instrumentation development aspects of correlative microscopy techniques based on SIMS imaging. With a range of examples from energy materials, we will show the powerful correlative microscopy possibilities that emerge due to these new in-situ and operando methods and compare with ex-situ correlation. Our recent work in the application of these methods in hydrogen containing materials and Li ion batteries will be reviewed. [more]

The mechanical behavior of most metals in engineering applications is dominated by the grain size. Physics-based models of the interaction between dislocations and the grain boundary are important to correctly predict the plastic deformation behavior of polycrystalline materials. Dislocation-grain boundary interaction is complex and a challenge to model. In this talk, I will present a short history, opportunities, and challenges for modeling grain boundaries at the mesoscale using discrete dislocation dynamics. This includes an effective model and a novel model for physical transmission of dislocations through grain boundaries with a residual grain boundary dislocation. In addition, I will provide an outlook how these models can and should be calibrated using micromechanical experiments on bicrystals. [more]

Many of the functional materials we hope to leverage for next-generation technological applications — such as computing, energy harvesting and storage, or communication devices — draw their unique and sometimes exotic properties from a suite of interactions between the atoms, spins, and charges in a crystalline lattice. With direct, real-space access to these order parameters down to the atomic scale, the scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) is a powerful tool to probe the fundamental framework of such compounds and their properties. As an example of this, I will show how advanced STEM techniques can elucidate key questions about the landscape of superconductivity in recently discovered nickelates. But many of these functional systems are most useful (and therefore interesting) away from the ambient conditions of most typical high-resolution STEM experiments, for instance at cryogenic or elevated temperatures or under an external bias. It is therefore imperative to expand the environmental compatibility of these methods through the parallel development of both hardware and data processing tools, key examples of which will be highlighted here. [more]