The Laboratory for Materials Physics is involved in basic and applied research in the fabrication, characterization, and application of new materials. It supports work that involves a wide network of collaboration with members of the faculty in physics, chemistry, and engineering, along with physicists and engineers at other universities and national X-ray and neutron diffraction facilities.
Topics of research include: amorphous, quasicrystal, and complex intermetallic crystalline alloy formation; liquid structure and its relationship to the nucleation barrier; transitions in supercooled liquids, including the glass transition; coupled phase transitions; predictions of metallic glass forming ability based on properties of the high-temperature liquid.
Facilities are available for the production and characterization of materials. Metallic alloys are prepared by arc melting or by RF melting. Rapidly quenched alloys are produced by melt spinning in an inert atmosphere. Facilities in the Institute of Materials Science and Engineering allow a rage of diffraction, microstructure and compositional studies over very small regions within the alloys. Transformation kinetics are enabled over a wide temperature range using a combination of a Perkin-Elmer Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) and a Setaram Differential Thermal Analyzer (DTA).
A unique facility, housed in the Laboratory for Materials Physics is an electrostatic levitation facility. This allows measurements of thermophysical properties of high temperature liquids as well as quantitative studies of crystal nucleation in the supercooled liquids. It is transportable and has been used to make a wide range of liquid structural studies at the Advanced Photon Source.