MVC 13 Awards Gallery

“If Plants Grew like Lithium Niobate Crystals, then I’d Plant a Garden of Sunflowers”

Katy Gerace, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: While black and white electron images are quite possibly the farthest thing from a colorful garden, the radially growing lithium niobate crystals wedged between potassium niobium silicate oxide reminded me of blossoming flowers. As a dabbling gardener myself, I usually focus my energy on growing vegetables. But no matter how hard I try, stray sunflowers always seems to pop-up in the veggie garden. Always appearing with nothing more than soil and sun, sunflowers represent the all-to-easily formed lithium niobate crystals in my SiO2-Nb2O5-Li2O-K2O glass system. Just like sunflowers grow in the garden, lithium niobate crystals grow in my glass-ceramic, producing a beautiful bouquet of flowering crystals in a garden of glass.

Scientific Process: Glass-ceramics are produced through controlled nucleation and crystal growth of a crystalline phase within a non-crystalline glass matrix. This image captures a silica-based glass matrix with lithium niobate (orange and yellow sunflowers) and potassium niobium silicate oxide (green leaves) crystalline phases. It was taken using back-scattered electrons on a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Through oriented crystal growth of ferroelectric crystals such as lithium niobate, anisotropic properties such as piezoelectricity are introduced to glass which is inherently isotropic. Oriented crystal growth in glass-ceramics offers a novel way to produce piezoelectric materials while maintaining the unique formability of glass.

FIRST PLACE

“Dendrites in a Battery”

Rong Kou, assistant research professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: Light like a feather and delicate like a fern? Do not let the looks fool you. These metal dendrites grown from battery cycling will penetrate the separator, short-circuit the battery, and cause the battery to overheat and, in some instances, catch on fire. This image inspires me because of the soft, delicate appearance in contrast to the material’s stiff nature, a candy to eyes but a poison to batteries.

Scientific Process: The branched-tree-like dendrites grow in metal batteries such as Lithium batteries and Zinc batteries due to the irregular nucleation and deposition of the metal anodes during the charging/discharging of batteries. The dendrites sprout across the electrolyte and penetrate the separator to short-circuit the batteries causing the failure of the metal batteries. The image shows the microstructure of the Zinc dendrites grown in a Zinc battery.

SECOND PLACE

“Heavenly Patterns: Widmanstätten Microstructure in Additively Manufactured Duplex Stainless Steel”

Youssef Refaat Ali, graduate students, Additive Manufacturing and Design

Artist’s Perspective: I still remember the day I first used a microscope to look at onion cells back in middle school. I was astonished at what lies beyond the view of the naked eye. Fortunately, till this day I am still in awe of the world found under a microscope. Microscopy helps us understand much more about material systems and how new sustainable means of manufacturing influence them. Additive manufacturing is a gateway to new discoveries that will eventually improve upon traditional manufacturing methods resulting in more cost-effective and advanced materials with better properties. As the perseverance rover recently landed on the surface of Mars, one day the next mission will be carrying a 3D printer capable of printing materials on the spot aiding the journey of interplanetary travel.

Scientific Process: Widmanstätten microstructure, naturally occurring in iron-nickel meteorites that fell thousands of years ago, has been observed in 2205 duplex stainless steel fabricated using additive manufacturing. In this image, austenite is the observable dark grain while the lighter background is ferrite.  SEM imaging revealed that “needle-like” Widmanstätten austenite grains grow from grain boundaries under high cooling rates and temperatures exceeding 1000K observed during additive manufacturing. Compared to other austenite morphologies in this image, this type of grain increases material hardness and mechanical properties. This image was obtained using the Apreo scanning electron microscope at a magnification of 5,000x.

THIRD PLACE

“The Shell – Additive manufactured Ti-6Al-4V fracture surface”

Qixiang Luo, graduate student, Department of  Materials Science and Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: The spherical gaseous pores have fine shell structure with elegant whirls that initiated from the melt pool solidification on boundary of gas and solid alloys. There are both single placed shells and overlapped ones that separated all over the fracture surfaces, and their unique neat fashion make them stand out compared to the messy crack networks and failure cliffs.

Scientific Process: The laser powder bed fusion manufactured Ti-6Al-4V material has relative stronger tensile properties but weaker ductility, and one of the reason for that is the massive number of pores during melting and solidification process of the alloy. These large gaseous pores are often the sources for internal crack that eventually leads to failure of the material. And the image here shows the fracture surfaces under SEM, where the shell features are the spherical gaseous pores, also associated with deeper irregular pores that can be the region that initiate the cracks.

FIRST PLACE

“If Plants Grew like Lithium Niobate Crystals, then I’d Plant a Garden of Sunflowers”

Katy Gerace, graduate student, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: While black and white electron images are quite possibly the farthest thing from a colorful garden, the radially growing lithium niobate crystals wedged between potassium niobium silicate oxide reminded me of blossoming flowers. As a dabbling gardener myself, I usually focus my energy on growing vegetables. But no matter how hard I try, stray sunflowers always seems to pop-up in the veggie garden. Always appearing with nothing more than soil and sun, sunflowers represent the all-to-easily formed lithium niobate crystals in my SiO2-Nb2O5-Li2O-K2O glass system. Just like sunflowers grow in the garden, lithium niobate crystals grow in my glass-ceramic, producing a beautiful bouquet of flowering crystals in a garden of glass.

Scientific Process: Glass-ceramics are produced through controlled nucleation and crystal growth of a crystalline phase within a non-crystalline glass matrix. This image captures a silica-based glass matrix with lithium niobate (orange and yellow sunflowers) and potassium niobium silicate oxide (green leaves) crystalline phases. It was taken using back-scattered electrons on a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Through oriented crystal growth of ferroelectric crystals such as lithium niobate, anisotropic properties such as piezoelectricity are introduced to glass which is inherently isotropic. Oriented crystal growth in glass-ceramics offers a novel way to produce piezoelectric materials while maintaining the unique formability of glass.

SECOND PLACE

“Gold droplets on graphene leaf”

Rinu Abraham Maniyara, Postdoctoral Scholar, Materials Science and Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: My passion for photography always makes me to make an analogy between my work to the daily life. This work explores the relationship between scientific output of my experimental work of gold metal intercalation on graphene surface to the the real-life water droplets on leaves. As the real scientific output image is a colorless, I wanted them to turn around into a colored daily life image that my audience is familiar with. For that I have retouched them using photoshop software and made a colorful one.

Scientific Process: Scanning electron microscope image of two-dimensional gold intercalated on epitaxial graphene/silicon carbide substrate through Confinement Heteroepitaxy. The gold nanoparticles above the graphene surface are residual particles after the intercalation process.

THIRD PLACE

“Heavenly Patterns: Widmanstätten Microstructure in Additively Manufactured Duplex Stainless Steel”

Youssef Refaat Ali, Graduate Student, Additive Manufacturing and Design

Artist’s Perspective: I still remember the day I first used a microscope to look at onion cells back in middle school. I was astonished at what lies beyond the view of the naked eye. Fortunately, till this day I am still in awe of the world found under a microscope. Microscopy helps us understand much more about material systems and how new sustainable means of manufacturing influence them. Additive manufacturing is a gateway to new discoveries that will eventually improve upon traditional manufacturing methods resulting in more cost-effective and advanced materials with better properties. As the perseverance rover recently landed on the surface of Mars, one day the next mission will be carrying a 3D printer capable of printing materials on the spot aiding the journey of interplanetary travel.

Scientific Process: Widmanstätten microstructure, naturally occurring in iron-nickel meteorites that fell thousands of years ago, has been observed in 2205 duplex stainless steel fabricated using additive manufacturing. In this image, austenite is the observable dark grain while the lighter background is ferrite. SEM imaging revealed that “needle-like” Widmanstätten austenite grains grow from grain boundaries under high cooling rates and temperatures exceeding 1000K observed during additive manufacturing. Compared to other austenite morphologies in this image, this type of grain increases material hardness and mechanical properties. This image was obtained using the Apreo scanning electron microscope at a magnification of 5,000x.

FIRST PLACE

“Templating Mechanism in Carbon Nanotubes Composite Films”

Malgorzata Kowalik, Faculty, Mechanical Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: The background is a tunneling electron microscope (TEM) image of the graphitized composite film. The graphitized layers of polymer matrix can be observed in the proximity of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The reactive simulations provide an atomistic view of the chemical changes responsible for a templating mechanism leading to this graphitization. The simulations snapshots of the composite system (CNTs with polyacrylonitrile) after 1ns carbonization simulations at 1500K generated with VMD visualization software are represented in colors. All polymer atoms are translucent and newly evolved all-carbon rings (a starting point for the graphitic structure) are gray clustered polygons. The CNTs are represented only with the carbon-carbon bonds.

Scientific Process: Carbon nanotubes addition provides not only reinforcement, but also nanoscale confinements for a matrix material. The presence of highly align CNTs alters the carbonization properties of these composite materials. We used the ReaxFF method to identify the underlying molecular changes responsible for this low-temperature graphitization. The enhanced all-carbon ring production observed in the presence of the carbon nanotube can be used to explain experimentally observed epitaxial growth of anisotropic graphitic crystals leading to the graphitization of these composite materials at a much lower temperature, then the graphitization temperatures characteristic for the traditional carbon fibers.

SECOND PLACE

“Converting cost-effective polyacrylonitrile/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) blend precursors to carbon fibers”

Qian Mao, Postdoctoral Scholar, Mechanical Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: The traditional approach of producing polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-derived carbon fibers (CFs) is expensive, partially due to the rigorous control over the sequence of thermal treatments such as oxidative stabilization, carbonization, and graphitization. To this end, we propose the PAN/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) (PBO) blend as a cost-effective CF precursor. And through our ReaxFF molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we identify that PAN/PBO blends could be a promising alternative for PAN-based precursors, for they can decrease the total cost of CF production by eliminating oxidation process, having a relatively fast conversion rate, and having considerable all-carbon ring formation, comparable to that of oxidized PAN precursor. Based on this finding, a VMD image is made as to describing the process of converting a PAN/PBO blend precursor to clusters of all-carbon ring structures, followed by graphitic 3D or graphene-like 2D structures as the temperature is sufficiently high.

Scientific Process: This VMD image is made by assembling initial PAN and PBO molecular chains, equilibrated PAN/PBO blend system at 300K, clusters of all-carbon ring structures together with the representative oxygen-containing gases and nitrogen-containing groups at 2800K, and graphene-like 2D structures at ultra-high temperature for artistic liberty. The all-carbon ring structures are replicated with periodic boundary condition, slightly overlapping with the graphene-like 2D structures, which can be considered as the formation of graphitic 3D networks and the inception of the growth of graphene-like 2D structures. The coordinates of all atoms are extracted from ReaxFF MD simulations, and the Tachyon render method is applied for generating the image with better visual effect.

THIRD PLACE

“Electrochemical charging near a pseudocapacitive electrode surface”

James Goff, Graduate Student, Materials Science and Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: With the growing needs for cleaner energy storage and conversion, realistic models of energy storage materials are needed to aid in the design of high-performance energy storage devices. Specifically, there is a need for high-power devices for use in electric/fuel cell vehicles. First-principles calculations with continuum solvent models allow us to model these materials systems in realistic conditions. The system pictured is a Ti3C2O2 pseudocapacitive electrode, suitable for high-power transportation applications. As the electrode charges, the response of the ions in the solvent, shown as colored contours above and below the electrode surface, is related to the capacitance of the electrode.

Scientific Process: In order to predict the energy storage capabilities of pseudocapacitive MXene electrodes, the adsorption of ions must be modeled in realistic conditions. The ion adsorption isotherms as a function of voltage are calculated with electronic structure calculations that incorporate the key effects of applied voltage, surface electrification, and the electrochemical double layer. Along with charge stored by chemical reactions, the accumulation of ions in the solvent near the electrode also contributes to charge storage. This is electrochemical double layer charging (colored isocontours in the image) and is accounted for with quantum continuum models during simulations of ion adsorption. After accounting for the different charge storage mechanisms, overall material performance is assessed, and the trends used to design new pseudocapacitor systems.

“Converting cost-effective polyacrylonitrile/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) blend precursors to carbon fibers”

Qian Mao, Postdoctoral Scholar, Mechanical Engineering

Artist’s Perspective: The traditional approach of producing polyacrylonitrile (PAN)-derived carbon fibers (CFs) is expensive, partially due to the rigorous control over the sequence of thermal treatments such as oxidative stabilization, carbonization, and graphitization. To this end, we propose the PAN/poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) (PBO) blend as a cost-effective CF precursor. And through our ReaxFF molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we identify that PAN/PBO blends could be a promising alternative for PAN-based precursors, for they can decrease the total cost of CF production by eliminating oxidation process, having a relatively fast conversion rate, and having considerable all-carbon ring formation, comparable to that of oxidized PAN precursor. Based on this finding, a VMD image is made as to describing the process of converting a PAN/PBO blend precursor to clusters of all-carbon ring structures, followed by graphitic 3D or graphene-like 2D structures as the temperature is sufficiently high.

Scientific Process: This VMD image is made by assembling initial PAN and PBO molecular chains, equilibrated PAN/PBO blend system at 300K, clusters of all-carbon ring structures together with the representative oxygen-containing gases and nitrogen-containing groups at 2800K, and graphene-like 2D structures at ultra-high temperature for artistic liberty. The all-carbon ring structures are replicated with periodic boundary condition, slightly overlapping with the graphene-like 2D structures, which can be considered as the formation of graphitic 3D networks and the inception of the growth of graphene-like 2D structures. The coordinates of all atoms are extracted from ReaxFF MD simulations, and the Tachyon render method is applied for generating the image with better visual effect.