MSE Colloquium: Amit Misra, Design of Multifunctional Metallic Nanolayered Composites

Abstract

Design of materials at the nanoscale allows for the development of novel multi-functional materials with unprecedented properties. Using physical vapor deposition, a variety of model systems are synthesized to explore unusual behavior at the nanoscale. For example, high strength and high electrical conductivity in nano-twinned Cu; high strength, high thermal stability and plastic flow stability in nanolayered Cu-Nb; high strength and deformability in nanolayered Al-TiN. These concepts are extended to design radiation damage tolerant structural nanocomposites for advanced nuclear energy applications. Finally, severe plastic deformation techniques such as accumulative roll bonding (ARB) are used to process bulk nanolayered composites such as Cu-Nb where the interface structure can be tailored by deformation processing. This work provides insight into manufacturing strategies for bulk nanocomposites for nuclear energy and transportation applications.

This research is sponsored by DOE, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

Bio

Amit Misra works at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico where is a Lab Fellow and the Director of a US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (DOE/BES) funded Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC): Center for Materials at Irradiation and Mechanical Extremes. He earned his MS (’91) and PhD (’94) degrees in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI under the supervision of Prof. Ron Gibala, and Bachelor’s degree in Metallurgy from the IT-BHU (now Indian Institute of Technology, Varanasi), India. He joined LANL as a post-doctoral researcher in November 1996, was promoted to a staff scientist in August 1998 and to a Lab Fellow in 2011.

His research interests and skills include structural materials and nanocomposites for nuclear energy and transportation applications, dislocation theory, transmission electron microscopy, and nanomaterial synthesis. He has co-authored over 250 peer-reviewed publications. 

He is a Fellow of the American Society of Metals (ASM) International (2011), and he received the 2011 Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award from the Materials Processing and Manufacturing Division (MPMD) of The Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS).

He served as a Meeting Chair for the Materials Research Society (MRS) Fall Meeting 2012, and serves on the editorial board of MRS Bulletin. He is one of the principal editors for the new Taylor & Francis journal: Materials Research Letters.