Antennas and Electromagnetics Group seminar – 6th of May 2025

When: Tuesday, May 6, 2025, 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM
Where: G.O. Jones L.T. + Online, Mile End

Topic: Simulation-guided discovery and design of mesoscale structures for optimum and novel properties

Synopsis: Materials research is largely concerned with the study and manipulation of the spatial and temporal evolution of structural, magnetic, electric polarization, and chemical domains in a material as well as their responses to external stimuli. One of the powerful computational techniques to model the mesoscale microstructures is the phase-field method. However, the majority of the existing applications of phase-field method have been focused on modeling, reproducing, and understanding the evolution of experimentally observed materials microstructures during processing and in-service conditions or to test analytical theories. This presentation will discuss a few examples on our recent attempts to employ the phase-field method to not only interpret and understand experimentally observed ferroic domain patterns but also provide guidance to experimental synthesis and characterization to discover new mesoscale domain states of ferroic materials or achieve dramatically enhanced properties. These include the computation-guided discovery of polar vortex lattices, skyrmions, and unusual negative capacitances in ferroelectric superlattices, design of record-high piezoelectricity in ferroelectric relaxor ceramics and single crystals, and the discovery of simultaneous near-perfect light transparency and ultrahigh piezoelectricity through AC poling.

Speaker bio: Professor Long-Qing Chen is Hamer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State. He received his Ph.D. from MIT, M.S. from Stony Brook University, and B.S. from Zhejiang University. His main research interests include thermodynamic theory and computational model development for understanding solid phase transitions and microstructure development. His research awards include the Materials Research Society (MRS) Materials Theory Award, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Humboldt 
Research Award, The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) John Bardeen Award, American Ceramic Society (ACerS) Ross Coffin Purdy Award, TMS Cyril Stanley Smith Award, TMS William Hume-Rothery Award, The American Society of Metals (ASM) International 
Silver Medal, TMS Functional Materials Division (FMD) Distinguished Scientist/Engineer Award, and IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society (IEEE-UFFC-S) Distinguished Lecture Award. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and a Foreign Member of Academy of Europe (Academia of Europaea, MAE).

Hybrid mode: In-person: G.O. Jones L.T. + Online (Click here to join the meeting)

All welcome.