Emerging Science and Research Opportunities for Metals and Metallic Nanostructures

Abstract

During the next decade, fundamental research on metals and metallic nanostructures (MMNs) has the potential to continue transforming metals science into innovative materials, devices, and systems. A workshop to identify emerging and potentially transformative research areas in MMNs was held June 13 and 14, 2012, at the University of California Santa Barbara. There were 47 attendees at the workshop (listed in the Acknowledgements section), representing a broad range of academic institutions, industry, and government laboratories. The metals and metallic nanostructures (MMNs) workshop aimed to identify significant research trends, scientific fundamentals, and recent breakthroughs that can enable new or enhanced MMN performance, either alone or in a more complex materials system, for a wide range of applications. Additionally, the role that MMN research can play in high-priority research and development (R&D) areas such as the U.S. Materials Genome Initiative, the National Nanotechnology Initiative, the Advanced Manufacturing Initiative, and other similar initiatives that exist internationally was assessed. The workshop also addressed critical issues related to materials research instrumentation and the cyberinfrastructure for materials science research and education, as well as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce development, with emphasis on the United States but with an appreciation that similar challenges and opportunities for the materials community exist internationally. A central theme of the workshop was that research in MMNs has provided and will continue to provide societal benefits through the integration of experiment, theory, and simulation to link atomistic, nanoscale, microscale, and mesoscale phenomena across time scales for an ever-widening range of applications. Within this overarching theme, the workshop participants identified emerging research opportunities that are categorized and described in more detail in the following sections in terms of the following: three-dimensional (3-D) and fourdimensional (4-D) materials science. Structure evolution and the challenge of heterogeneous and multicomponent systems. The science base for property prediction across the length scales. Nanoscale phenomena at surfaces-experiment, theory, and simulation. Prediction and control of the morphology, microstructure, and properties of ''bulk'' nanostructured metals. Functionality and control of materials far from equilibrium. Hybrid and multifunctional materials assemblies. Materials discovery and design: enhancing the theory-simulation-experiment loop. Following an introduction, these emerging research opportunities are discussed in detail, along with challenges and opportunities for the materials community in the areas of instrumentation, cyberinfrastructure, education, and workforce development.

Review of the Application of Nanotechnology for Sustainable Construction Materials

“…The practical relevance of metals can be seen everywhere, from aluminum, steel and titanium utilized in infrastructure and transportation to shape-memory alloys for biomedical implants and carriers for cancer detection and treatment utilizing metal nanoparticle. Though many would only realize the importance of these at macro-scale with regard to their applications, creating and improving the properties for which they are known requires control at the nano-scale [12].…”

Reliability of twin-dependent triple junction distributions measured from a section plane

“…Additionally, a stereological method does not require reconstruction of a threedimensional polycrystalline structure. For many of the three-dimensional techniques it is estimated that researchers often spend more time in reconstruction than in data collection [26,47]. Reconstruction generally may consist of data handling activities such as image processing or alignment.…”

Combinatorial ALD for the growth of ZnO/TiO2nanolaminates and mixed ZnO/TiO2nanostructured films

“…Many such properties depend on bulk phenomena which then manifest as new surface phenomena. 41 Photocatalytic activity is a good example of such a phenomenon, in which the creation of excitons via the absorption of light of energy greater than the band gap of the material results in the formation of highly oxidizing surface species, capable of destroying organic materials such as pollutants and micro-organisms. Arguably, the most well-known examples of photocatalytically active metal oxide materials are TiO 2 and ZnO.…”