Electrically Induced Phase Transition in Metal (08/02/23)

Speaker and Affliation:

Prof. Rishi Raj
University of Colorado Boulder.

When?

08^th February, 2023 (Wednesday), 11:00 AM (India Standard Time)

Venue

KPA Auditorium, Department of Materials Engineering

Abstract

The phenomenon of flash sintering discovered in Boulder in 2010 is expanding into new fundamental directions. One of them is the view that the flash “transition” exemplified by superdiffusion, a transition to electronic conductivity in oxides, volume expansion and evidence of defect generation, is most likely a phase transition. Fundamental studies of such a hypothesis are enabled by recent work on flash sintering of metals, e. g. copper. Among many applications one significant development is the production of graphene-infused copper with a conductivity that is higher than that of the copper it is made from*. A full analysis suggests that the conductivity of the composite is greater than predicted by the rule of mixtures, raising fresh questions about the presence of space charge at the graphene-copper interface produced by flash.

*Co-Authors: Syed Jalali, Emmanuel Bamidele and U. (Balu) Balachandran