It's a Small World: Reengineering Material Properties Using Micro- and Nanoarchitecture
Speaker Details:
Dr. Lucas Meza
University of Washington, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Lecture Details:
April 22, 2021
12:30 p.m. - 1:20 p.m.
Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
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Abstract:
It is well understood that materials derive their properties from both their composition and the nanoscale organization of their constituents. Controlling and quantifying that relationship is a fundamental problem in materials science, and a large body of work has been applied to studying the unique material properties that arise on sub-micron length scales. Emerging fabrication techniques have enabled the creation of materials with precise nanoscale architecture, providing new methods both for creating novel micro- and nanoarchitected materials and for studying material interactions at these fundamental length scales.
This talk will explore the mechanics of micro- and nanoarchitected materials and discuss how they can be designed to break into novel mechanical property spaces. We will investigate how shell buckling instabilities can be used to create ductile and recoverable ceramic nanolattices with 10nm hollow beams. We will show how pyrolysis can be used to create ultrahigh strength amorphous carbon and controllably introduce prestress into a material to make a nano-tensegrity. We will explore methods for reproducing nanoarchitectures found in natural brittle materials and studying their enhanced toughness. And we will examine some novel techniques for controlling material deformation at the nanoscale to create new classes of highly deformable and shock resistant materials.
Speaker Bio:
Lucas Meza is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Washington. His research investigates new ways of engineering material properties at the micro- and nanoscale. He did his postdoc at the University of Cambridge, where he studied the micromechanical behavior of 3D woven fiber composites, and he obtained his PhD in mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for his work on ultralight, hierarchical metamaterials composed of nanoscale ceramics.
