Department News 2005

October 2005

• A paper from Marek Skowronski's group was selected by Thomson ISI Essential Science Indicators as a representative of a "fast moving front" in Materials Science. ISI identifies these papers by a surge in recent citations. Marek's paper has recently been cited 52 times in subsequent publications. Click here to read an interview with Marek. The paper is "Structure of recombination-induced stacking faults in high-voltage SiC p-n junctions, "Liu, JQ, Skowronski, M, Hallin, C, Soderholm, R, and Lendenmann, H, APPL PHYS LETT, 80 (5): 749-751, FEB 4 2002.
• Materials Science Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) will receive $6.5 million over the next six years from the National Science Foundation to continue creating new, super efficient materials for many industry sectors.
  
  "Our goal is to create new paradigms for interdisciplinary work that apply the principles of basic science and engineering to understanding the behavior, development and application of various materials," said Gregory S. Rohrer, head of MRSEC and Carnegie Mellon's Materials Science & Engineering Department. Since 1996, MRSEC researchers have been working to understand the intricate nature of nanoscale grain boundaries in materials. Most metallic and ceramic materials used in aircraft, automobiles and computers are made up of many microscopic crystals held together by grain boundaries. These materials are called polycrystals.
  
  "We are studying how these nanoscale polycrystals work and what makes them both durable and functional," Rohrer said.
  
  To that end, MRSEC researchers have discovered that materials in this polycrystalline state often behave differently depending on the types of grain boundaries they contain. Familiar materials, from gold to plastics, display startling new properties when the nanoscale grain boundary structure is altered. Some can display greatly increased strength or resistance to corrosion while others can turn into potent chemical catalysts. What's more, Carnegie Mellon researchers are finding with their newly developed computer-controlled experimental methodology that they can create materials for everything from fortified car fenders to more fuel-efficient aircraft.
  
  "We see our research ultimately making it possible for manufacturers to one day produce smaller, faster computer chips and safer power plants," Rohrer said.
  
  MRSEC also has extensive collaboration with national laboratories, as well as important international collaborations. An important feature of the educational program is a Partnership for Research and Education in Materials (PREM) with Florida A&M University. Carnegie Mellon's center is one of 29 centers nationwide supported by the MRSEC program with annual NSF support of $52.5 million.
  
• A paper by Professor Robert F. Davis with R. I. Barabash, G. E. Ice, W. Liu, S. Einfeldt, D. Hommel, A. M. Roskowski and R. F. Davis, "White X-ray Microbeam Analysis of Strain and Crystallographic Tilt in GaN Layers Grown by Maskless Pendeoepitaxy", Physica Status Solidi (a) 202, 732-738 (2005) was selected by the management of the Advance Photon Source as an "outstanding" result from that facility. This award acknowledges excellence in collaborative research between Davis' student team of scholars (Einfeldt and Roskowski) and those at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Barabash, Ice and Liu) and the University of Bremen (Einfeldtand Hommel).
• A paper by Professor Marc De Graef was selected by the editors of the Journal of Physics D for "institute of physics select status" as one of the best papers this month. The paper is, "Demagnetization factors for elliptic cylinders, M. Beleggia, M. De Graef, Y.T. Millev, D.A. Goode, and G. Rowlands, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 38 (2005) 3333-334"
• Professor Mohammad Islam's paper was featured on the cover of Science Magazine (Science, Vol 309, Issue 5738, 1207-1210, 19 August 2005). The paper, "Premelting at Defects Within Bulk Colloidal Crystals," by Alsayed, Islam, Zhang, Collings, and Yodh, accounts some of the work he did at Penn. [abstract]

August 2005

• Jessamine Winer (MSE '05) has won the Microscopy Society of America's Presidential Student Fellowship and travel grant to attend the 2005 MSA Conference in Honolulu, HI. Jessamine is author of "Lorentz TEM Characterization of Al-Cu-Ge-Mn Alloys." J. P. Winer, N. T. Nuhfer, M. E. McHenry and M. De Graef.

June 2005

• Professor Anthony D. Rollett and his co-workers (David Saylor, Joseph Friday, Bassem El-Dasher, Kee Young Jung) have won the Henry Marion Howe Medal from ASM. This medal has been awarded since 1923 to authors of the best paper in Metallurgical and Materials Transactions during the past year. Rollett's team has won the 2004 medal for the paper: D.M. Saylor, J. Fridy B.S. El-Dasher, K.-Y. Jung and A.D. Rollett, "Statistically Representative Three-Dimensional Microstructures Based on Orthogonal Observation Sections," Metallurgical and Materials Transactions, 35A (2004) 1969-1979.

May 2005

• Professor Gregory S. Rohrer has been named Head of the Materials Science and Engineering Department effective May 16, 2005. Professor Rohrer received his Ph.D. from from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989 and joined Carnegie Mellon in 1990. Since 1999 he has served as the Director of the NSF funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at CMU. Greg will replace current MSE Department Head Professor Alan W. Cramb who has accepted the position of Dean, School of Engineering at Rensselaer.

April 2005

• The MSE Spring 2005 Newsletter is available

February 2005

• The annual Young Member's Night of the Pittsburgh Golden Triangle Chapter of ASM International was held last night and it proved to be a winning night for many Materials Science and Engineering students. Senior, Jennifer Singelyn received the "Outstanding Senior Award", doctoral student Christopher Roberts was named "Chapter Outstanding Young Member" and junior Diana Chan and sophomore Nicole Cates were each presented the "Past Chairpersons' Education Assistance award. MSE students fared equally well in the poster competition with doctoral student Ying Pang taking home the first place prize (graduate competition) for her poster "Correlation between GB Segregation and Character in Nb-doped TiO2". Junior Eric Vanderson received first place (undergraduate competition) for his poster "Deformation Behavior of Rolled Cu-Nb Micro and Nano Composites" and juniors Selina Brownridge and Diana Chan shared the second place prize for their "Comparative Analysis of Processing Techniques on Y-Ba-Cu-O Superconductor". Senior Jennifer Singelyn was awarded the third place prize for "Gels for Tissue Engineering."
  
• Dr. Robert A. Heard has been appointed as the first Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The appointment is for a term of three years, effective July 1, 2005.

January 2005

• Professor Sridhar Seetharaman has been appointed editor of AIST Transactions, a technical journal that publishes articles on research in the manufacture of iron and steel.
• US News and World Report has just published their "America's Best Colleges 2005" report and MSE has been ranked #9 in the materials undergraduate engineering category.