Grain boundary structure and interfacial complexions for the creation of tough, stable nanocrystalline metals

When: July 22nd at 3 PM

Where: Engineering Gateway, room 3161

by Amirhossein Khalajhedayati

Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science and Engineering

University of California, Irvine, 2015

Professor Timothy J. Rupert, Chair

Nanocrystalline metals have been the focus of current literature due to their interesting mechanical properties.  This is a result of having nanometer sized grains and high volume fraction of grain boundaries.  While these materials have high strength, the large number of boundaries is also responsible for the limited ductility and thermal instability often observed for nanocrystalline systems.  Despite the current efforts in the literature, these challenges still prevent widespread use of nanocrystalline metals in real engineering applications.  In this thesis, we study these problems by focusing on tailoring the grain boundary structure and chemistry and propose a methodology that can be used to mitigate those challenges.  First, we study the plastic flow and failure as a function of grain boundary volume fraction (i.e., grain size) using microcompression in a nanocrystalline Ni-W.  Since grain boundary physics are extremely important here, we also study how the relaxation of nonequilibrium grain boundaries affects failure.  We show that nanocrystalline metals with larger grain boundary volume fractions and relaxed boundary structures are stronger, but also more likely to fail prematurely through catastrophic shear banding.  We also show that shear banding can create a dynamic microstructure leading to grain coarsening.  A major take-away from this work is that disordered grain boundaries can actually be beneficial.  Therefore, in the next study we introduce amorphous complexions, highly disordered grain boundaries, through grain boundary doping as an all-in-one solution to design against failure and thermal instability.  We use nanocrystalline Cu with the addition of Zr as our model system to explore complexion engineering in these materials.  High resolution transmission electron microscopy in conjunction with energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy demonstrates segregation of Zr to the boundaries of Cu-Zr alloys created with mechanical alloying.  This provided evidence for the formation of amorphous grain boundaries complexions under certain conditions.  Microcompression and in-situ bending experiments are then used to quantify the effect of doping on mechanical behavior.  Finally, our results show that strength, strain-to-failure, failure mode, and thermal stability can be controlled with boundary doping.  The proposed methodology described here is rather general and can be applied to other material systems to make bulk nanocrystalline metals with improved mechanical properties.

The Southern California Society for Microscopy and Microanalysis (SCSMM) announces its Fall Meeting.

Dear all

The Southern California Society for Microscopy and Microanalysis (SCSMM) announces its Fall Meeting.  The meeting will be held on Thursday, October 23rd from 5:30 pm at the Argyros Auditorium of Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center at the City of Hope, Duarte, California. A buffet dinner will be served.  Our fall meeting will be dedicated to the Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy. The featured speakers will be Thomas J. Deerinck (NCMIR and UCSD), and Grayson Chadwick (Caltech).

Please see full program on our website: http://www.scsmm.org/  In order to register, Please RSVP by email at micromark@juno.com. Respond no later than 5:00 p.m. Friday, October 17th.  The cost is $25 for professionals and $10 for students. Membership dues can be paid at the door on October 23rd.  Nonmembers are welcome to attend.  Please pass along to those you feel would be interested. You can also find us on the facebook

Look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

Sergey Prikhodko <prikhodko.sergey@gmail.com>

2014 SCSMM Spring Metting

Subject: SCSMM – Call for Student Talks and Posters

Dear Fellow Microscopist,

Please find our invitation below for students from Southern California universities to present their work at the SCSMM full-day Symposium to be held on February 8, 2014 at the University of California Irvine.
As is our tradition, the best platform presentation will be awarded $500 and the best poster will be awarded $300. These awards are to support travel to the national M&M Meeting, this year to be held in Hartford, CT (August 3-7, 2014).

More information on abstract submission and deadlines can be found in the file attached.
Examples of submitted abstracts from the last full-day symposium can be found on our website:

http://www.scsmm.org/history/2013-Student-Abstracts.pdf

Sincerely,

Your SCSMM Board

Call for Student Talks and Posters
SCSMM Symposium, Saturday February 8th, 2014
Calit2 Auditorium, University of California, Irvine
All students attending Southern California universities are invited to submit titles and brief abstracts (~200 words plus one optional JPG image) to present their work at the SCSMM All-day Symposium to be held at Calit2 Auditorium, UCI on February 8th, 2014. Five submissions will be selected as 15 minute platform presentations. All others will be invited to present posters describing their work.
As is our tradition, the best platform presentation will be awarded $500 and the best poster will be awarded $300. These awards are to support travel to the national M&M Meeting, this year to be held in Hartford, CT (August 3-7, 2014).
Please submit abstracts to:
sergey@seas.ucla.edu
The subject line should read – SCSMM Student Presentation
The content should include:
Name, e-mail address and affiliation (institution, department).
Preference for platform or poster presentation (students requesting a platform presentation may be asked to submit a poster as only five platform presentations are scheduled).
Presentation title.
A ~200 word abstract.
(Optional) an image after the text of the abstract and not exceeding one page. See examples of submitted abstracts from the last year symposium on our website:
http://www.scsmm.org/history/2013-Student-Abstracts.pdf
Deadline for submission – January 24
Notifications of acceptance will be e-mailed by January 31.

SCSMM – Fall Meeting Announcement, November 7, 2013

From: Rambaldi, Diana [mailto:drambaldi@lacma.org]
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2013 6:19 PM
Subject: SCSMM – Fall Meeting Announcement, November 7, 2013

Dear Fellow Microscopist,

Please find attached our Newsletter / Meeting Announcement detailing our upcoming Fall meeting which will be held on November 7, 2013 at the University of Southern California. The meeting will start at 5:30 pm.

Our fall meeting will be dedicated to the UCLA California NanoSystem Institute (CNSI). The featured speakers will be Dr. Paul Weiss, Director of CNSI, Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystem Sciences, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry & Materials Science and Engineering at UCLA, and Dr. Adam Stieg, Scientific Director of the Nano & Pico Characterization Laboratory at CNSI.

In order to register, please contact Mark Armitage by email at micromark@juno.com. Please state how many will be attending.
Respond no later than 5:00 p.m. Monday, November 4th, 2013.

Membership dues can be paid at the door on November 7, 2013.

We hope to see you all at the meeting.

Sincerely,

Your SCSMM Board
SCSMM_2013-11-07-Annc

2012 SCSMM Symposium on March 3 (one full day) at Caltech

Here is the Message from Dr. John Port together with the SCSMM Symposium schedule 

Just a reminder – the SCSMM Meeting is coming up on March 3 at CalTech.  Full details are available at: www.scsmm.org

 We have a full day of talks and 16 posters this year for what will be an excellent meeting.  The final platform program and poster program are attached.  Our National Tour Speaker this year is David Williams, co-author of the text book Transmission Electron Microscopy.

 One of our student presenters has created a Facebook link.  You can use it to notify all your friends! https://www.facebook.com/events/284962681560521/

 If you do intend to come, please don’t forget to register.  Details on our web site!

 On behalf of our board, we hope to see you all at the meeting.

 John Porter

President SCSMM

2012 Symposium Schedule
07:30 – 08:50 Registration
08:50 – 09:00 Welcome address
09:00 – 09:30 Structure and dissection of biological complexes in situ using cryogenic transmission electron microscopy
Morgan Beeby, California Institute of Technology
09:30 – 10:00 Electron Tomography of HIV in Gut-Associated Lymphoid Tissues
Mark Ladinsky, California Institute of Technology
10:00 – 10:15 Vendor Talk – Gene Griggs, FEI
10:00 – 10:15 Vendor Talk – Scott Sitzman, Oxford Instruments
10:45 – 11:00 Coffee Break
Sponsored by Oxford Instruments
11:00 – 11:30 Transmission Electron Microscopy of Incandescent Lamps and Liquid Water
Chris Regan, University California at Los Angeles
11:30 – 12:15 Reflections on Microscopy & Analysis: From Viewing the Small World to Leading on a Larger Stage
David Williams, The Ohio State University
12:15 – 13:30 Lunch Break, Vendor Exhibits and Graduate Student Poster Judging
Sponsored By FEI
13:30 – 13:45 Business Meeting
13:45 – 15:00 Five Student Presentations:
Effect of Water Vapor on Non-Ideal Oxide Growth in NiCoCrAlY Bond
Coat Systems, Matthew Sullivan, UCI
Fluorescence microscopy in thick biological tissues by optical phase
conjugation of ultrasound-tagged light, Yingmin Wang, CalTech
Magnetization Dependence on Crystallinity in Nanostructured
Gadolinium, Chin-Jui Ray Hsu, UCLA
Structural, mass, and elemental analyses of storage granules in
methanogenic archaeal cells, Dan Toso, UCLA
Bioremediation applications of microbial fuel cells utilizing Shewanella
oneidensis MR-1, Prithiviraj Chellamuthu, USC
15:00 – 15:30 Electron Cryo-Tomography Studies of Sporulating Bacteria, Elitza Tocheva, California Institute of Technology
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee Break and Poster Session
Sponsored by Edax
16:00 – 16:15 Vendor Talk or extension of Poster Session
16:15 – 16:30 Vendor Talk, Jack Rosek, Edax
16:30 – 17:00 Chemical and structural analysis on the sub-nanometer scale using highresolution STEM and atom probe field microscopy – A case study of GaNAlN, Stephan Kraemer, University California at Santa Barbara
17:00 – 17:30 Student Awards Presentations and Closing Statement

Call for Student Talks and Posters for SCSMM 2012

Call for Student Talks and Posters
SCSMM Symposium, Saturday March 3, 2012
Beckman Institute Auditorium, Caltech

All students attending Southern California universities are invited to submit titles and brief abstracts (~200 words plus one optional JPG image) to present their work at the SCSMM All-day Symposium to be held at CalTech on March 3, 2012. Five submissions will be selected as 15 minute platform presentations. All others will be invited to present posters describing their work.
As is our tradition, the best platform presentation will be awarded $500 and the best poster will be awarded $300. These awards are to support travel to the national M&M Meeting, this year to be held in Phoenix (July 29 – August 2). 2nd and 3rd place runners up will receive student memberships in either MSA or MAS.
New: the best presentation and the best poster at SCSMM will be offered a second opportunity for presentation at M&M thanks to the M&M Program Committee.
Please submit abstracts to:
johnrporter@me.com
The subject line should read – SCSMM Student Presentation
The content should include:
Name, e-mail address and affiliation.
Preference for platform or poster presentation (students requesting a platform presentation may be asked to submit a poster as only five platform presentations are scheduled).
Presentation title.
A ~200 word abstract.
(Optional) an attached JPG image file.
Deadline for submission – January 30
Notifications of acceptance will be e-mailed by February 6.

FEI-Oxford Instruments Joint Symposium on FEI Quanta 3D FEG Dualbeam, Oxford EDS/EBSD and related Specimen Preparation Techniques

Dear current and potential users of UCI materials characterization facilities:

To take full advantage of the FEI Quanta 3D FEG SEM equipped with Oxford Instrument EDS/EBSD and the related specimen preparation facility, you are invited to attend the FEI-Oxford Instruments Joint Symposium on FEI Quanta 3D FEG Dualbeam, Oxford EDS/EBSD and related Specimen Preparation Techniques. Application engineers from both FEI and Oxford instruments are invited to give lectures and demos on principle, applications and operations of this instrument and related attachments. Dr. Scott Walck is invited to talk about specimen preparation techniques. Details are listed below. It is free to attend the lectures and demos of this symposium. Because of limited time and space, the number of people for demos could be limited. First come, first served. Please sign up in the Google spreadsheet as indicated below.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlVa2cfmNf6XdDZaYndyT2VncU94V2hMeTczWDRzSnc#gid=0
If you have any question, please email Dr. Jian-Guo Zheng (jzheng@uci.edu)
FEI-Oxford Instruments Joint Symposium on FEI Quanta 3D FEG Dualbeam, Oxford EDS/EBSD and related Specimen Preparation Techniques
Venue: Room 3008/ Auditorium Calit2 Building, UCI
Date: Jan 12-13, 2012

Thurs. Jan 12, 2012
8:30-9:00 Breakfast
9:00-9:10 Prof. Matt Law (UCI)
Current UCI materials characterization facilities and future development plan
9:10-9:50 Marc Castagna (FEI)
FEI Quanta 3D FEG dual-beam system: SEM principle and applications
9:50-10:30 Marc Castagna (FEI)
FEI Quanta 3D FEG dual-beam system: FIB principle and applications
10:30-10:45 Coffee break
10:45-11:25 Scott Sitzman (Oxford Instruments)
Introduction to EBSD
11:25-12:05 Dr. Scott Walck
Specimen preparation for SEM, EBSD and TEM
12:05-13:05 Lunch
13:05-13:45 Calit2 Microscopy Center tour and discussion with FEI and Oxford instrument engineers in 1302 Calit2 building
13:45-14:30 Marc Castagna_ (FEI)
New Development in FEI: Magellan™ XHR SEM
14:30-15:10 Scott Sitzman (Oxford Instruments)
What is new in Oxford instruments: EDS and EBSD
15:10-15:25 coffee break
15:25-17:00 FEI operation demo and Oxford EDS/EBSD (software) demo in 1302 Calit2 building

Fri. Jan 13, 2012
8:30-9:00 Breakfast
9:00-9:40 Marc Castagna (FEI)
Advanced applications of FEI Quanta 3D FEG: Slice & View, TEM specimen preparation, auto-FIB, STEM
9:40-10:20 Marc Castagna (FEI)
Advanced applications of FEI Quanta 3D FEG: biology, medicine and geology
10:20-10:35 Coffee break
10:35-11:15 Scott Sitzman (Oxford Instruments)
Advanced applications of EBSD
11:15-12:15 Scott Sitzman (Oxford Instruments)
EDS and EBSD operation demo in 1302 Calit2 Building
12:15-13:15 Lunch
13:15-15: 15 Dr. Marc Castagna_ (FEI)
FEI advanced application demo in 1302 Calit2 Building

Lectures and Demo: Thermo EDS system

Dear EDS users:
I am pleased to tell you that the new Thermo EDS system installed on FEI/Philips XL-30 SEM has been running well for a month. This system has all advanced EDS features including line scan, elemental mapping and phase mapping. To help current/future users get the best out of the system, I have invited Thermo application engineer to give lectures and demos in a seminar. The full-day seminar will be held on Nov 17, 2011 in Calit2. The schedule is listed below:

9:00-9:45: Lecture (Room 3008 Calit2)
General introduction to Thermo EDS NSS system

9:50-10:30:Lecture (Room 3008 Calit2)
Advanced features in Thermo EDS NSS system

10:45-4pm: Thermo EDS NSS system Demo/training ( Room 140 Engineering Tower)

Attending the lectures is free. There is no limitation to the number of people to attend the lectures. However, because of small space of XL-30 SEM room, the number of people for the demo/training may be limited. Please sign up on the follow excel sheet if you want to attend this seminar. Please mark the demo column with Y if you need to attend the demo or you have a sample for the demo. The link to the sign-up sheet is listed below:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlVa2cfmNf6XdEpYbHV6b1JkanpEcWRTYkVIZkEyS2c&hl=en_US#gid=0

Thanks for your attention. You may forward this message to a person who may be interested in.

Best regards,
Jian-Guo

Summer Calit2 TEM short course-August 30-31, 2011-3008 Calit2 Building

Dr. Jian-Guo Zheng is going to give a few lectures from August 30 to 31, 2011 in summer Calit2 TEM short course. It is free of charge to attend the lectures. The goal of the short course is to help existing and potential users of FEI CM-20 TEM understand basic principles and applications of transmission electron microscopy. More details are listed below. If you want to attend the short course, please sign up by August 29, 2011 in the google spreadsheet posted at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlVa2cfmNf6XdFlCTUlRNC1CU0VhX2dVMVA2YWFCRVE&hl=en_US#gid=0

Summer Calit2 TEM short course
Date: August 30-31, 2011
Lecture room: 3008 Calit2 Building

August 30, 1pm-2pm, Lecture:Introduction to TEM,
August 30, 2pm-5pm, Lecture: Electron Diffraction
August 31, 9am-noon, Lecture: TEM Imaging
August 31, 1pm-5pm, Lecture: EDS and TEM specimen preparation

Student bursary at 2011 M&M meeting in Nashville, TN

Greetings,

To all students (or those of you who might have students) attending the
2011 M&M meeting in Nashville, TN, please consider the student bursary
program offered by MSA. The purpose of these bursaries is to encourage
students to attend the annual MSA/MAS Microscopy and Microanalysis
meeting, where they can meet and interact with the established
microscopy community while defraying some meeting costs.

Students work for 20 hours (or up to 40 hours) during the meeting and
pre-meeting events and are paid $10 an hour. The jobs involve such
things as providing support in the different symposia (helping with
audio-visual needs, maintaining an attendance count, and helping
speakers set up for their presentation), staffing the volunteer office,
monitoring use of the Internet Café, and helping with vendor tutorials
and poster set-up. Payment is given as a check at the end of the
meetings or when the student leaves Nashville.

Once the task list has been finalized, each bursary will be contacted
and allowed to choose the times and activities they would like to work.
Many times they end up *working* sessions they would attend anyway.
There is an added bonus of $10 cash meal allotment for each morning
and/or afternoon worked and a meeting shirt.

If anyone would like to participate in the bursary program, please
check the *I wish to apply for a student bursary* box in section 2
of the registration form. Bursary space is limited, so sign-up early.
Applicants for the bursaries must be members of MSA or MAS, enrolled as
students at a recognized educational institution, and have paid the
registration fee.

For those *non-students* volunteers are needed to help with the
above mentioned meeting activities as well. Although not paid on an
hourly basis as the student bursaries, volunteers do receive the same
cash allotment for meals and shirt. Plus they also have the
opportunity to interact more with the microscopy community as they
assist with meeting tasks.

If anyone has any questions about the bursary/volunteer program, or
would like to participate, please contact:

Amanda Lawrence
Institute for Imaging and Analytical Technologies
Mississippi State University
662-325-3019
alawrence@i2at.msstate.edu