Research

With support from the Department of Energy Office of Science’s Graduate Student Research program, Materials Science and Engineering Ph.D. student Dayne Sasaki will be using the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to conduct groundbreaking research that combines the fields of artificial spin ices and complex oxides.

The first generation of computers used vacuum tubes. The second, transistors and the third, integrated circuits. Each new generation allowed computers to be faster, smaller and more energy efficient. Now, as the world stretches beyond the limits of integrated circuits, what does the fourth generation of computing look like?

Materials Science and Engineering Ph.D. candidate Pallavi D. Sambre is taking the first steps toward engineering lifelike artificial materials that reconstitute a cell’s ability to change their membrane shape to move from one part of the body to another.

Second-year materials science and engineering Ph.D. student Margaret Duncan, part of Associate Professor Marina Leite’s lab, received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. The fellowship is the oldest and one of the most prestigious of its kind and it recognizes and supports outstanding STEM graduate students who have the potential to become knowledgeable experts and significantly contribute to research, teaching, and innovation.

Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Scott McCormack and his team received $1.4M from the Air Force Office of Science and Research to reduce uncertainty and standardized processing techniques for ultra-high temperature ceramics.

Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs) are ceramic materials that melt at temperatures above 3000˚C, nearly 5500˚F. Their ability to withstand extreme heat loads makes them ideal for building hypersonic vehicles and platforms, but UHTCs can be difficult to process reliably.

Materials Science and Engineering Associate Professor Roopali Kukreja has received the prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (NSF CAREER) Award.

Professor Ricardo Castro speaks with Ellen Airhart from The New York Times' Wirecutter on nanotechnology. In this article titled Paying More for Nano-Textured Glass (Probably) Isn’t Worth It, Professor Castro talks about the value of nanotechnology in the development of screen glass for cellphones and computer monitors. Currently, nanotechnology is utilized to strengthen screens as well as reduce glare — but is it worth the price markup? Read the full article on Wirecutter

Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Seung Sae Hong recently received a prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (NSF CAREER) Award. The CAREER award is the agency’s highest honor for young faculty. It recognizes those with the potential to be leaders in their fields and funds five-year research and education projects that should serve as the foundation for their careers.

Optimizing the performance of electrolytes used in alternative energy technologies such as solid oxide fuel cells, and batteries relies on measuring and understanding the transport of oxide and lithium (Li) ions (O2- and Li+) and/or protons (H+) in ceramic materials.

Materials science and engineering (MSE) former undergraduate researcher Joyce Christiansen-Salameh has developed a new way to analyze complex x-ray nano-diffraction datasets using a k-means clustering algorithm. The program iteratively groups data points by clustering pixels with similar intensity within a certain distance on the detector, which makes it easier to find the Bragg peaks that reveal the structure.

Materials science and engineering associate professor Marina Leite thinks machine learning is key to the next big breakthrough in renewable energy. With a new three-year grant from the National Science Foundation, Leite will use machine learning techniques to study perovskite solar cells, a class of highly efficient but volatile devices, to find the optimal conditions to run them reliably.

Though their optical and electrical properties are very promising, perovskites are a class of materials that are still understudied. Until researchers have a better understanding of their overall properties, they can’t learn how to control them to create ubiquitous devices like solar cells, LEDs and photodetectors.

A new NSF-funded project at UC Davis aims to give researchers “recipes” for consistent and optimized structures of nanoporous gold—a material with potential applications in a variety of fields.

Driven by the thrill of discovery, materials science and engineering professor Yayoi Takamura’s research group explores the “fun physics” of the magnetic and electronic properties of thin films of complex oxide materials to better understand how these materials that can be used in advanced computing.

Associate professor Marina Leite is a co-author on a new paper in Nature Energy that establishes standards and procedures for testing the stability of perovskite photovoltaic devices. The publication, the result of the 12th International Summit on Organic Photovoltaic Stability (ISOS) in October 2019, was co-written by 60 leading researchers in the field from across the globe who came together to form this consensus.

A new paper from professor Ricardo Castro’s group at UC Davis changes the understanding of how nanoscale dimensions affect the hardness of ceramics. The study, led by then Ph.D. student Arseniy Bokov, found that on nanoscale dimensions, ceramic materials give a false impression of softening because of an extensive network of almost invisible nanocracks.

If space is the final frontier, UC Davis is taking giant leaps to reach it. With expertise in human-machine cooperation, control systems and materials under extreme conditions, the university aims to make itself a rising star in space engineering and play a crucial role in the next generation of space exploration.

A publication from Professor Ricardo Castro’s group was highlighted on Materials Today. The team, consisting of Castro’s group and visiting postdoctoral scholar Flavio Souza, found that Chlorine alters electron spin in hematite, showing why the material underperformed expectations in photoelectrochemical cells and proving that spin mobility manipulation is possible.

A team of UC Davis researchers led by Assistant Professor Roopali Kukreja recently published their findings that magnetite’s transition between metal and insulator is a two-step process, instead of a one-step process like previously thought.

Magnetite is a unique material in that depending on temperature, it can either be a metal, which conducts electricity well, or an insulator, which does not. Kukreja’s team investigated this transition, theorizing that it has to do with the arrangement of the material’s electrons, and found this two-step process.

UC Davis materials science and engineering research was featured on the American Ceramic Society (ACerS) website in a recent article. The study, led by doctoral student Arseniy Bokov in Ricardo Castro’s Nanoceramics Thermochemistry Lab, looked at grain boundaries in nanocrystalline ceramics with the goal of improving toughness. The mechanical stability of these materials is important for the performance of battery electrodes and capacitors.