The AZoM.com "Materials Thought Leaders" series is a selection of articles that cover the key technology areas where materials are making an impact and where they will make an increasing impact. All the articles are written by experts who have been invited as recognised leaders in their fields to provide a "state of the art" contribution.
Phase Contrast X-ray Imaging of Defects Transformation in Silicon Carbide (SiC)
By By Prof Jung Ho Je, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Director, X-ray Imaging Center, Pohang University of Science and Technology, South Korea.
Porous Metals and Metal Foams: In Search of the 'Holey' Grail
By Dr Andrew Kennedy, Associate Professor, Manufacturing Division, Faculty of Engineering, University of Nottingham, UK
Stimuli-Sensitive Materials for Drug Delivery
By Dr. Carmen Alvarez-Lorenzo, Dept. Farmacia y Tecnologia Farmaceutica, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Olefin Polymerization - Catalysts from Group 10 to Group 4
By Dr. Changle Chen, Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago, USA
Expanding the Materials Performance Envelope by Controlling Interfaces
By Prof. Michael J. Demkowicz, Demkowicz Research Group, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Printed Electronics
By Dr Gregory L Whiting, Electronic Materials and Devices Laboratory, Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Magnetic Intermetallic Nitrides
By Professor Richard Dronskowski, Chair of Solid-state and Quantum Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Pyrometallurgical Technologies
By Professor Oleg Ostrovski, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Designing Organic Semiconducting Materials: The Promise of Flexible Electronics
By Professor Seth C. Rasmussen, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, North Dakota State University
Microstructure Mining - An Introduction to Microstructure Mining
By Professor Ian Nettleship, Dept. Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, University of Pittsburgh
Metallic Glasses - No Disdain for Disorder
By Professor Rainer J. Hebert, Institute of Materials Science, University of Connecticut
High Performance Superconductors - An Introduction to High Performance Superconductors
By Dr. Simon R. Hall, Centre for Organized Matter Chemistry, University of Bristol
Nanostructured Metallic Alloys - Materials for the Future
By Professor Emily M. Hunt, Department of Engineering and Computer Science, West Texas A&M University
Mechanical Metallurgy - A Key to Optimizing Materials for Energy, Transportation, and Structural Applications
By Professor Kip Findley, Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center (ASPPRC), Colorado School of Mines
Shape Memory Materials - An Introduction to Shape Memory Materials
By Professor Wei Min Huang, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Atomistic Modeling of Materials
By Professor Dane Morgan, Co-Founder, Computational Materials Group, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Materials Selection - What is Materials Selection?
By Professor Mike F. Ashby, Principal Investigator, Engineering Design Centre, Department of Engineering, The University of Cambridge; Non-Executive Chairman; Granta Design
MAX Phases - An Introduction to MAX Phases
By Professor Michel W. Barsoum, Group Leader, MAX Phase Materials Research Group, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Drexel University
Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics - An Introduction to Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics
By Professor William G. Fahrenholtz and Professor Greg E. Hilmas, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Magnetoelectric Interfaces: Emerging Perspectives for Novel Functionalities
By Professor Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, Director, Materials Research Science Engineering Center (MRSEC); Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Designing Cell-Responsive Biomaterials Through Protein Engineering
By Professor Sarah Heilshorn, Group Leader, Heilshorn Biomaterials Group, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University
Diamond-Based Photonic Sources
By Professor Richard P Mildren, MQ Photonics Research Centre, Department of Physics, Macquarie University, Australia
Atom Probe Tomography: Seeing Millions of Atoms… in 3D
By Professor Krishna Rajan, Director, Institute for Combinatorial Discovery, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Iowa State University
Green Processing of Iron-Based Materials
By Professor Allen W. Apblett, Kevin Barber, and Daniel Hoel, Department of Chemistry, Oklahoma State University
Materiomics: Materials Science of Biological Protein Materials, from Nano to Macro
By Professor Markus J. Buehler, Principal Investigator, Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Material Characterization for Power Generation Applications
By Dr. Bruce A. Pint, Corrosion Science and Technology Group, Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Green Engineering and Materials Science
By Dr. Sean McGinnis, Director, VT Green Engineering, College of Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
Materials Science and Structural Integrity (SI) Assessment
By Professor Kamran Nikbin, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London
Materials Science and The Global Nuclear Renaissance
By Dr. John Marra, Associate Laboratory Director; Environmental & Chemical Process Technology, Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), USA
Semiconductor Biological and Gas Sensors
By Professor Stephen J. Pearton, Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Professor Fan Ren, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Florida, USA
Phase Contrast X-ray Imaging of Defects Transformation in Silicon Carbide (SiC)
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Phase contrast imaging (PCI) based on using synchrotron X-rays is an ideal method to visualize internal microstructure of various materials, in particular, of semiconductor materials. PCI spatial resolution has been greatly improved by the advent of modern synchrotron radiation (SR) sources with small angular divergences and high spatial coherences. Read more
Porous Metals and Metal Foams: In Search of the 'Holey' Grail
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Nature’s porous materials, bone, coral and cork, are synonymous with strong and lightweight structures. Driven by the prospect of producing a family of materials with unique combinations of properties, materials scientists and engineers have followed nature’s lead and spent the last 20 years developing.... Read more
Stimuli-Sensitive Materials for Drug Delivery
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In this 'Thought Leader' article Dr. Carmen Alvarez-Lorenzo discusses three research lines that are being currently carried out in the R&D Pharma Group of the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Technology at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Read more
Olefin Polymerization - Catalysts from Group 10 to Group 4
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The development of catalysts that are capable of polymerizing or copolymerizing functionalized vinyl monomers (CH2=CHX) by insertion mechanisms would enable the synthesis of new polyolefins with enhanced properties. The discovery by Brookhart and coworkers that (α-diimine)PdR+ catalysts copolymerize ethylene and acrylate monomers to highly branched copolymers was a seminal development in this field. Read more
Expanding the Materials Performance Envelope by Controlling Interfaces
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The performance envelope of materials limits much of what technology can accomplish, for example in energy applications: from steam generators and batteries to high-voltage power lines and nuclear reactors, better materials translate into cleaner, safer, and cheaper energy. So how can we tailor matter to our needs, rather than being constrained by what’s available?. Read more
Printed Electronics
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In this Dr Gregory L Whiting of PARC, discusses recent developments and benefits in the low-cost volume fabrication of electronic devices using additive printing techniques. Read more
Magnetic Intermetallic Nitrides
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Isn’t it puzzling that most of our (digital) memories depend on the existence of the right materials, in particular magnetic compounds? Remember that a ferromagnetic iron oxide, magnetite, coated on a polymer resulted in the world’s first magnetic tape and was used to eternally capture Mozart’s Symphony no. 39 in E flat major played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham. Read more
Pyrometallurgical Technologies
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This article by Professor Oleg Ostrovski discusses the pyrometallurgical routes used in the commercial production of steel, aluminium, metallurgical silicon, manganese, chromium, titanium, and many other metals and alloys. Read more
Designing Organic Semiconducting Materials: The Promise of Flexible Electronics
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Most organic polymers are insulators and are often used to isolate metallic conductors from other conducting materials. However, studies beginning in the 1960s revealed that the electrical conductivity of conjugated organic polymers can be controlled through oxidation or reduction. Read more
Microstructure Mining - An Introduction to Microstructure Mining
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Microstructure Mining, as its name suggests, is the application of data mining concepts, used in many branches of science and engineering, to the analysis of materials microstructure. Read more
Metallic Glasses - No Disdain for Disorder
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Metallic glasses were borne out from rapid cooling experiments with binary metallic alloys in the late 1950s at the California Institute of Technology under the aegis of Pol Duwez. The idea was to quench molten metal mixtures very rapidly and thereby bypass crystallization of the liquid alloy. Read more
High Performance Superconductors - An Introduction to High Performance Superconductors
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Superconductors are a class of compounds which conduct electricity without resistance and are impermeable to magnetic flux below a critical temperature. As a result of this, they are ubiquitous in applications as diverse as MRI scanners, Earth-orbiting deep space cameras and Maglev trains. Read more
Nanostructured Metallic Alloys - Materials for the Future
Recent advancements in the field of nano-technology focused attention on developing materials with new and useful characteristics. This short article is focused on examples of future opportunities within nanostructured metallic alloys. Read more
Mechanical Metallurgy - A Key to Optimizing Materials for Energy, Transportation, and Structural Applications
Mechanical metallurgy can be defined as the interface between an alloy's mechanical behavior, the processing used to produce the alloy, and the underlying structure ranging from the atomic to macroscopic level. Read more
Shape Memory Materials - An Introduction to Shape Memory Materials
Shape memory materials (SMMs) are featured by the ability to recover their original shape from a significant and seemingly plastic deformation upon a particular stimulus is applied. This is known as the shape memory effect (SME). Read more
Atomistic Modeling of Materials
Atomistic modeling techniques use modern computing power to explicitly include every atom in modeling of a material. As interacting atoms are the foundation of all materials science, atomistic modeling has helped enable a new field of computational materials studies. Read more
Materials Selection - What is Materials Selection?
Material selection involves seeking the best match between the property-profiles of the materials and that required by the design. Granta Design Ltd, UK have developed material property charts & selection methodologies that facilitate this match and interface with other engineering tools. Read more
MAX Phases - An Introduction to MAX Phases
A dozen years ago we synthesized and fully characterized, for the first time, the ternary compound, Ti3SiC2, and found it possess some of the best attributes of metals and ceramics. This was later found to be part of a much larger family of solids that all behaved similarly. Read more
Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics - An Introduction to Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics
Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are a class of materials that can be used in environments that exhibit extremes in temperature, chemical reactivity, erosive attack, etc. A variety of criteria can be used to define UHTCs including ultimate use temperature and strength at elevated temperature. Read more
Magnetoelectric Interfaces: Emerging Perspectives for Novel Functionalities
Magnetoelectric (ME) materials are those in which an external magnetic field affects the polarization, and an electric field influences the magnetization of the material. A well-known example of the ME material is Cr2O3. Read more
Designing Cell-Responsive Biomaterials Through Protein Engineering
Currently, surgeons use two primary types of materials inside the body to replace damaged body parts: either common industrial materials or harvested natural materials. Common industrial materials include stainless steel and titanium alloys in artificial joints and synthetic polymers in vascular bypasses. While these materials often perform well at replacing mechanical functions in the body, they lack much of the micro- and nano-scale organization necessary for proper biochemical function within the body. Read more
Diamond-Based Photonic Sources
Diamond is highly attractive as a laser material as it promises capabilities well beyond that possible from other materials in accordance with its extreme properties. Read more
Atom Probe Tomography: Seeing Millions of Atoms… in 3D
Atom Probe Tomography (APT) represents a revolutionary characterization tool for materials that can image individual atoms in three dimensions, a major advancement over the two dimensional images of other microscopy techniques. Read more
Green Processing of Iron-Based Materials
Among the twelve principles of green science and technology is a desire that the production of materials be achieved from sustainable sources with minimal environmental impact, and preferably by recycling of waste materials. Read more
Materiomics: Materials Science of Biological Protein Materials, from Nano to Macro
Materiomics is defined as the study of the material properties of natural and synthetic materials by examining fundamental links between processes, structures and properties at multiple scales, by using systematic experimental, theoretical or computational methods. Read more
Material Characterization for Power Generation Applications
The goal of clean coal research is to increase the steam temperature, which would increase efficiency. At these conditions, Ni-base superalloy blades and vanes in the turbine are protected by sophisticated film cooling systems and by thermal barrier coatings. Read more
Green Engineering and Materials Science
The scope of Green Engineering depends upon one's perspective and discipline, but it is broadly defined as minimizing environmental impacts across all life cycle phases in the design and engineering of products, processes, and systems. Read more
Materials Science and Structural Integrity (SI) Assessment
Structural integrity is concerned with determining and predicting the performance, failure, durability and safety of the component fabricated from the material that is subjected to a range of operating conditions during use. Read more
Materials Science and The Global Nuclear Renaissance
The nuclear industry is at the eye of a 'perfect storm' with fuel oil and natural gas prices near record highs, worldwide energy demands increasing at an alarming rate, and increased concerns about greenhouse gas emissions that have caused many to look negatively at long-term use of fossil fuels. Read more
Semiconductor Biological and Gas Sensors
There is significant interest in the development of new generations of semiconductor-based sensors that take advantage of microelectronic fabrication techniques to create robust sensor arrays that are integrated with wireless data transmission systems. Read more