Research
Our research has been generously funded by a variety of organisations:
Click on the links below or look under the research tab above to find out about the different kinds of problems that we study.
Mechanisms and kinetics of grain boundary migration
Experiments to study the migration of grain boundaries are extremely challenging and it can be difficult to isolate the effects of the various different factors that influence, say, the mobility of a given grain boundary: its geometry, the effects of defects and impurities, or the effects of the surface of a TEM foil. Simulations provide a complementary route to a mechanistic understanding - we can construct and study perfect grain boundaries in defect-free bulk crystal and study the migration process right down to the level of individual atomic motions.
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Microstructural evolution in nuclear materials
We ask an awful lot of the materials that we use to build our nuclear power plants. Not only do they suffer the effects of heat and a corrosive environment in common with gas- and coal-based generators, but they must also cope with the effects of irradiation. These effects start at the smallest length- and time-scales: incoming high energy particles rearrange the atoms of nuclear materials, introducing defects and changing the way that the mechanical properties of the materials evolve over time.
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Electronic effects in irradiation damage
An intuitive picture of the initial irradiation damage to materials caused by high energy particles is of a series of collisions between billiard ball atoms, introducing defects to the crystalline order and carefully designed microstructure. This simple picture can provide a great deal of insight, but we mustn’t forget about the electrons that belong to the moving atoms. Often the atoms move so fast that their electrons, light and fast though they are, cannot keep up: they become excited. This excitement of the electrons has a variety of consequences and can profoundly affect the damage caused by irradiation and the changes in material properties that it gives rise to.
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