Mechanical and Functional Design of Nanostructured Materials

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The Chair program focuses on understanding and designing atomic and electronic structures of embedded nano-structures, which are confined at dislocations and interfaces in crystalline solids, in order to enhance material performance beyond that of the idealized solid. In the proposed research program, Dr. Zhu plans to study formation dynamics and performance characteristics of embedded nano-structures by advancing in-situ electron microscopy techniques and further exploring her recent findings on reconstructed gold-oxide interfaces and dislocation-based nano-structures in magnesium. Research will be untaken in three themes. Theme1 will expand beyond the visualization capability of Dr. Zhu's current in-situ, electron microscope-based thermo-mechanical testing platform by adding new function such as monitoring crystallographic evolutions and estimating mechanical properties in a way that is comparable to macroscopic testing. Dr. Zhu will make use of the technique developed in Theme1 to overcome the characterization difficulties of embedded nano-structures and study linear (Theme2) and planar (Theme3) embedded nano-structures during formation, migration, and deformation processes. Theme2 will identify formation dynamics and deformation physics of dislocation-based nano-structures to develop advanced magnesium alloys. Theme3 will tune gold-rutile interfaces and interface-mediated mass migration processes to assemble high quality rutile nanowires. The outputs of the proposed research include: i). new characterization techniques that can resolve embedded nano-structures and their surrounding lattices; ii) the development of high-strength and high-ductile magnesium alloys and advanced oxide nanowires for biomolecule detection; iii) a theoretical framework that is capable of predicting defect-enhanced nano-structures and the corresponding material behaviors that they can produce. The results will be of great value to the key industries involved in aerospace, automotive, renewable energy industry. Students and researchers will be trained with the unique skillset, particularly reconfiguring electron microscopes and characterizing new nano-structures, for their further academic and career development.