Conference: Nano-alloys & compounds @ IMRC 2023

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY

The expected impact of alloys – a metal made from two or more other metals – on technologies of both today and tomorrow – and their impact on society – is comparable to that of metals in the history of civilization! Moreover, interest in nanometric alloys has grown due to observed differences at the nanoscale of their physical and chemical properties compared to bulk alloys.

Indeed, there are three additional degrees of freedom at the nanoscale, i.e., size, morphology and segregation/ordering, all playing a major role in the extraordinary properties of nanostructured materials.

The intellectual merit of the Nano-Alloys and Compound Symposium is to promote and encourage new collaborations and interactions, especially in the new topics of nano-alloys such as high entropy alloys, machine learning algorithms. The symposium provides an international forum on the latest developments in nano-alloys and compounds research, acting as a gathering point for the international scientific community working in the field, while being a catalyst to promote further synergy between experimental and computational approaches.

Students participating to the Nano-Alloys and Compounds Symposium will also have access to many other symposiums; as the International Materials Research Congress hosting the Nano-alloys and compounds symposium, also host other symposiums, and is run in multi-parallel sessions. This setup-up will have a beneficial impact on students’ mindset as it will broaden their vision and research interests.

Their participation to this event will help them to perfect their presentation skills, network and initiate new collaborations; and help them finding potential new advisors and mentors. Also, students will have the opportunity to attend tutorials sessions to learn more about a specific topic in materials science.

TECHNICAL SUMMARY

To fully exploit the structure and performance of nano-alloys, an theoretical deduction of their the limits of stability of the various phases at equilibrium is critically needed. Unfortunately, such knowledge is still lacking because calorimetry experiments are extremely challenging to perform at the nanoscale due to the small masses involved. Therefore, in-situ microscopy and theoretical predictions are then a smart and necessary complement to difficult and time-consuming calorimetric experiments.

To combat this hurdle in understanding the behavior of nano-alloys, a -two days event- symposium is being organized during the International Materials Research Congress 2023. It will bring together theoreticians and experimentalists to discuss new ideas to move the field of nano-alloys forward.

The goal is contributing to fill the gap in knowledge between bulk materials, where the properties are calculated by classical thermodynamics; and clusters, where the properties are obtained by theoretical calculations, to advance the fundamental understanding of nano-alloys.

By supporting this symposium, the National Science Foundation is promoting interactions between US students, US scientists and international experts from North, Central and South America, Asia, and Europe; all who are interested in understanding the properties of nano-alloys. This symposium can be considered as the American (North, Central & South) congress counterpart dedicated to Nano-Alloys, complementary to ones held annually in Europe.

All contributions submitted by the participants to this symposium will be considered for publication in MRS Advances, after rigorous peer-review.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.