ChEMS Seminar: Toward a Unified Model for Grain Boundary Dynamics and Kinetics

Abstract: Interfaces are ubiquitous in modern technology. These include interfaces within a given material (e.g., grain boundaries or GB) and interfaces between different materials (e.g., in microelectronics). The complexity of these structures has led to a multiplicity of different structural models. Even for a given type of interface, there are disparate structural models for the description of different properties. In this presentation, I will focus particularly on the dynamical behavior of grain boundaries, but the approach is similar for all crystalline interfaces. In particular, I will describe our recent work on the development of a predictive model for most types of GB dynamics and kinetics. The basis of this approach comes from some simple ideas from crystallography. I will apply this model to describe how interfaces roughen, migrate, slide and interact with deformation within the crystals and a range of different driving forces on GB dynamics. The work is based on a combination of crystallography, statistical mechanics and extensive numerical simulation. Finally, I'll take a step back and consider how this all fits into a picture of the way microstructures (collections of interfaces) evolve. My goal is to provide a new, rigorous view of how grain boundaries in materials “work.”

Bio: David Srolovitz is the author of 500 papers on topics in materials theory and simulations ranging from defects (surfaces, grain boundaries, dislocations, point defects), microstructure evolution (grain growth, dislocations, stress effects, phase transformations), deformation (nanomaterials, dislocation motion, creep) and film growth (sputtering, evaporation, CVD). He has an h-index of 83 with more than 26,000 literature citations. Srolovitz is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of MRS, TMS, ASM and the Institute of Physics, and he is the winner of the 2013 MRS Materials Theory Award. Srolovitz completed his undergraduate work in physics at Rutgers University and earned his doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a staff member at Exxon Corporate Research and Los Alamos National Laboratory early in his career and then became a professor at the University of Michigan (materials science and applied physics), Princeton University (mechanical and aerospace engineering, applied mathematics) and the University of Pennsylvania (mechanical engineering and applied mechanics), where he is currently the Joseph Bordogna Professor of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the Penn Institute for Computational Science. He also served as the executive director of the Institute of High Performance Computing and the scientific director of the Science and Engineering Research Council in Singapore.

Host: Xiaoqing Pan