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MBSE Seminar: "Metastable Materials: New Materials from an Unstable World," Thomas Kuech, Ph.D.

October 18, 2019 - 11:45am

Materials and Biomaterials Science and Engineering Seminar Series

"Metastable Materials: New Materials from an Unstable World"

Prof. Thomas Kuech, Shoemaker Professor of Chemical Engineering

University of Wisconsin-Madison

 

11:45 AM - 1:00 PM

October 18, 2019

SSM 104

 

About Prof. Kuech: Thomas F. Kuech is the Shoemaker Professor of Chemical Engineering. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, MRS, IEEE and AAAS. He has received several honors including a Humboldt Research Award, several named lectureships and the American Institute of Chemical Engineering Stine Award. He is a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and City University of Hong Kong as well as an honorary professor at Nanjing University. He has served as the Editor-in Chief of the Journal of Crystal growth since 2005. He was also a Program Director at the National Science Foundation in the area of Advanced Manufacturing from 2015-2018. His research has focused on the study of the chemical and physical processes underlying the synthesis of semiconductor materials and structures. A particular focus has been the formation of semiconducting structures from the gas phase chemical reactions. The relationship of the physics and chemistry of growth to the attainment of novel materials, structures, or device enhancements has been a main direction of this work. His laboratory has developed new materials structures through the use wafer bonding and other materials integration techniques as well as nanopatterning allowing for the full range of structure dimension from the nm-to mm.

About the Talk: Many proposed next-generation materials and structures cannot be synthesized using conventional techniques. The use of conventional processes which are at local thermodynamic equilibrium prevents access to phases which are inherently metastable. New monolithic structures have also been proposed which cannot be synthesized in single crystal fashion but could have potential impact across several materials platforms. This talk will present some concepts and results on the growth of materials which bypass the issues of phase separation and surface diffusion associated with conventional techniques. Solid state epitaxy and low temperature growth processes are used to develop approaches to the formation of metastable materials and monolithic 3D structures. The growth of metastable semiconductors, such as GaAsBi, as well as SrTiO 3 and related compounds, as prototypical complex oxides, will be presented.

Refreshments provided, bring a mug for coffee and tea!

Location

SSM 104