2022 MRS Spring Meeting - Graduate Student Award Winners

The MRS Graduate Student Awards are intended to honor and encourage graduate students whose academic achievements and current materials research display a high level of excellence and distinction. In addition to the MRS Graduate Student Gold and Silver Awards, the Arthur Nowick Graduate Student Award, which honors the late Dr. Arthur Nowick and his lifelong commitment to teaching and mentoring students in materials science, is presented to a GSA finalist who shows particular promise as a future teacher and mentor.

Gold 

Souvik Biswas

California Institute of Technology

 

Jack Lewis

Georgia Institute of Technology

 

Jessie Posar

University of Wollongong

 

Shiekh Zia Uddin

University of California, Berkeley

 

Rebekah Wells

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

 

Wenjie Zhou

Northwestern University

 

Silver

Kaustav Chatterjee

Indiana University

 

Terry Ching

Singapore University of Technology and Design

 

Jakob Dahl

University of California, Berkeley

Nowick Award

 

Berit Goodge

Cornell University

 

Seán R. Kavanagh

University College London & Imperial College London

 

Robert Oliver

University of Oxford

 

Abhinav Parakh

Stanford University

 

Jimin Park

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

Katherine Mizrahi Rodriguez

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

Max Saccone

California Institute of Technology

 

Siew Ting Melissa Tan

Stanford University

 

Yu-Ming Tu

The University of Texas at Austin

 

Lauren Walters

Northwestern University

 

2022 MRS Spring Meeting - Best Poster Winners

Monday, May 9

So-Yeon Kim, Pohang University of Science and Technology

Jung Ah Lim, Korea Institute of Science and Technology

Darcy Unson, University of Cambridge

Haozhe Wang, California Institute of Technology

Inyeong Yang, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

 

Tuesday, May 10

Corey (Alex) Inman, Drexel University

Ji Yong Kim, Seoul National University

Guanyu Lu, Vanderbilt University

Nam Vu, National University of Singapore

Jeonghee Yeom, Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology

 

Wednesday, May 11

Jinyoung Kim, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology

Jiwoo Ko, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Aleksandra Krajewska, Trinity College of Dublin

Young-Jin Kwack, Hoseo University

Sangmin Lee, Seoul National University

Jian Liu, The Ohio State University

Alice Merryweather, University of Cambridge

Ashley Shin, University of California Los Angeles

 

Virtual Posters

Jun Cai, McGill University

Ryota Narishige, Kyushu University

Plenary & Featured Talks available online through June 30, 2022

Today is the last day of the 2022 MRS Spring Meeting & Exhibit. A great benefit of the hybrid design is that some of the talks are available on the virtual platform through June 30, 2022. This includes the Plenary and Featured Talks - which means all of the presentations given in Symposium X: Frontiers of Materials Research!

As a preview to the Symposium X speakers, here are two of the interviews done with MRS-TV.

"From Atom to System—Tera-Scale Energy Transition with Better Batteries” – Symposium X speaker Y. Shirley Meng

 

The Light Stuff: Enabling Sustainable, Product-Selective Photocatalysts with Plasmonics – Symposium X speaker Jennifer Dionne of Stanford University

Blogger: Judy Meiksin

Symposium SF12—Bioinspired Structural Composites—Advances in Experiments, Simulations and AI-Based Design

Luke Henderson, Deakin University

Modifying Composite Interfaces to Maximize Physical Performance and Functionality

Written by Henry Quansah Afful

Carbon fiber composites (CFRP) have shown potential for use in energy storage applications such as electrodes in car batteries. “The main challenge facing carbon fibers in energy storage is their very small surface area,” says Henderson. Some approaches attempted to increase the surface area sacrifice some mechanical properties of the carbon fiber. Henderson addressed this problem by grafting a conductive polymer (polyaniline) to the carbon fiber surface using a new, relatively easier method developed in his laboratory. A reductive potential is applied to the fibers in an electrochemical bath which reduces the polymer in the electrolyte, setting up a chain of reactions to graft the polymer to the fiber surface. Henderson used this method for different polymer chemistries and layers and demonstrated an increase in the tensile strength of the composite by up to 45%. This increase was due to the reinforcement of defects on the fiber surface from the grafting. Also, this method improved the polymer adhesion on the fiber surface by up to 215% higher than what is obtained conventionally.

The Rise of 2D Halide Perovskites – Symposium X speaker Aditya Mohite of Rice University

Two-dimensional halide perovskites (2D-HaP) are a sub-class of 3D perovskites, which have emerged as a new class of solution-processed organic-inorganic (hybrid) low-dimensional semiconductors. 2022 MRS Spring Meeting Symposium X speaker Aditya Mohite discusses his work on 2D-HaPs ranging from the fundamental light-induced structural behaviors, and solvation dynamics to control homogeneity of layer thickness, novel photo-physical behaviors, charge transport and their role in a high-efficiency optoelectronic device, with technologically relevant durability. Mohite's presentation can be viewed online through June 30, 2022.

 

 

Symposium EN06—Solid-State Batteries—From Electro-Chemo Mechanics to Devices

Munekazu Motoyama, Kyushu University

The Influence of Temperature on Li Plating/Stripping at Metal/Oxide Solid Electrolyte Interfaces

Written by Xinzi He

Oxide solid electrolytes (Li-ion conductors) are non-flammable and have no risk of releasing toxic gas. Munekazu Motoyama started the talk with two mechanisms of short-circuiting: the isolated void formation on the interface and hydrostatic pressure of Li at the flaw. Prof. Motoyama then introduced his systematical study on how different factors, including temperature, area, pressure, and interface wetting, would influence the critical current density (CCD) for short-circuiting using Li_6.6La₃Zr_1.6Ta_0.4O₁₂ (LLZT) solid electrolyte. The CCD was found to increase with the increase of the temperature and the increase of the LLZT thickness. Moreover, the activation energies of the CCDs were also discussed. An important founding is that the improvement of the wettability between Li and LLZT does not help increase the CCD. At the end, Prof. Motoyama and the audience also discussed the experiment setup on the electrode constructions.

Symposium SF07—In Situ Material Performance and Dynamic Structure Characterization Under Coupled Extremes

Daniel Kiener, Montanuniversity Leoben

Size Affected Toughening and Strain Rate Sensitivity of Silicon

Written by Henry Quansah Afful

It is a well-known phenomenon that nanostructured materials are much stronger than their bulk counterparts but this usually limits their fracture toughness. Can we emit dislocations that will blunt the crack tip and thereby increase the fracture toughness in these nanostructured materials? Kiener demonstrates this phenomenon in nanostructured silicon (Si) using in situ transmission electron microscope (TEM) at room temperature. Kiener created a notch in the material along some crystallographic orientation to act as a stress concentration site. TEM images reveal the nucleation of dislocations from the crack tip in <250 nm-thick Si which blunted the crack tip and increased the fracture toughness by a factor of 3 from what is observed in bulk Si. Dark field mode in TEM revealed the absence of these dislocations prior to the bending test proving that these were formed during the test. The presence of this intrinsic toughening mechanism in Si makes it more damage-tolerant and useful for microelectromechanical devices.

Plenary Session Featuring The Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Materials Science - MRS-TV Interview

Sossina Haile of Northwestern University discusses her Plenary address to the 2022 MRS Spring Meeting, titled “Vignettes in Solid State Electrochemistry for Sustainable Energy Technologies.” Haile's presentation can be viewed online through June 30, 2022.

 

 

2022 MRS Spring Meeting "Science as Art" winners

Congratulations to the winners!

 

Super Mario MXene World

Anupma Thakur, Indiana University-Purdue University

A multilayered MXene flake visualized as Yoshi from Super Mario. MXene world truly, is the best! Go varoom! Scale bar is 1 micron. (Team: Nithin Chandran, Kartik Nemani, and Babak Anasori)

 

Planet X: A Hidden Planet

Ji Young Kim, Seoul National University

The image shows the Ti-Ta-Hf-Zr-Nb High entropy alloy (HEA) particles fabricated by gas atomization. Since the particle's surface has a planet-like structure, it is expressed as a hidden planet, Planet X, which has not yet been discovered. The original image was obtained using TESCAN MIRA 3 Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM).

 

An Extremely Tiny Garden of MOFs

Angelica Rain Talosig, University of California, Irvine

Scanning electron microscopy image of a self-assembled ZIF-8 metal-organic frameworks. Two distinct crystal structures are seen in this image: the truncated dodecahedron structures are ZIF-8 (DIA) and the flower structures are ZIF-8 (SOD).

 

Spaceship Crystal

Martina Volpi, Université Libre de Bruxelles

Polarised light microscopy image of a chiral organic semiconductor.

 

Microfireworks

Yadong Yin, University of California, Riverside

The firework pattern is obtained from a nanoparticle thin film containing radial microcracks created by drying a drop of magnetite nanoparticle dispersion on a glass substrate. When imaged in a dark-field optical microscope, the microcracks strongly scatter light, producing the firework effect. No post-processing was done to the image.

 

Micro Water Lily

Jason Delente, Trinity College Dublin

This colorized SEM image shows a conductive water lily structure formed using direct laser writing in a polymer containing PEDOT:PSS.

EQ03.21.05: Polaron Mobility in Polymers

    Today I was in the mood to learn more about doped materials, and entered the EQ03.21: Next Generation Organic Semiconductors – Materials, Fundamentals and Applications I session . There I saw the “Effects of dopant size on polaron characteristics in chemically doped conjugated polymers” presentation by postdoctoral scholar Joel Bombile’s from the University of Kentucky. And was able to learn how the distance between the dopants cause an increased polaron mobility.

    Their study on chemical doping used dopants of different sizes (1.13Å - 6.32Å) to inject charge carriers in 10nm conjugated polymers. They determined the dopant size and charge, which are directly related to the dopant ratio and charge mobility, respectively. Because these properties affect the induced polaron binding, they were able to determine the polaron’s mobility. This also established whether or not the polarons could move freely between the material.

    Using density functional theory, the researchers noticed that as their dopant size increased, so did the polaron’s charge and size. Then by analyzing neutral and doped polymers, their data demonstrated a blue shift in the peaks of the optical absorption spectrum when the dopants were present. Finally, they found that the distance between the dopants and the polymer chain can decrease the polaron's binding energy.

    If you want to learn more about how to affect the mobility of polarons in polymers, click here to view the full presentation.