Structural and Chemical Disorder towards Advanced Materials

Horst Hahn / Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and University of Oklahoma, Germany/USA

July 11, 2024

Online live talk

Introduction

Advanced materials are typically characterized by complex nano- and microstructures with various phase compositions, grain sizes, chemical inhomogeneity or homogeneity, crystalline and amorphous structures, all leading to metastability. Over the past 30 years, many new materials have been developed making use of these possibilities and leading to many interesting properties. Prominent examples of such materials are metallic glasses, nanocrystalline materials and high entropy materials.

In recent years, new ideas and novel synthesis routes have shown the way to advanced materials with yet unknown structures and properties. The talk will present examples of synthesis, characterization and properties of advanced materials with amorphous and crystalline structures: nanoglasses, cluster-assembled amorphous and crystalline materials and high entropy oxides

Horst Hahn

earned his Ph.D. from the Technische Universität Berlin in 1982. Following a postdoctoral position at the Universität des Saarlandes, he relocated to the United States and held various positions at Argonne National Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Rutgers University. Upon returning to Germany in 1992, he attained the position of a full professor in the Department of Materials Science at the Technische Universität Darmstadt. Since 2005, he is also a Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and has received Honorary Professorships at the University of Hyderabad in India, as well as Lanzhou University and Xi'an Jiaotong University in China. Horst's notable contributions include founding the Helmholtz Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage in 2011 and serving as its Founding Director until 2015. From 2012 to 2022, he led a research group on nanoglasses at the Herbert Gleiter Institute of Nanosciences in Nanjing. Furthermore, he held the esteemed position of Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California, Irvine, in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Physics Department from 2019 to 2022.

 

Horst Hahn's research primarily revolves around the utilization and advancement of innovative synthesis and processing techniques, the thorough characterization of nano- and microstructures, and the exploration of the relationships between the nano- and microstructures of materials and their mechanical and functional properties. His fundamental scientific pursuits have focused on the development of cutting-edge materials encompassing metals, ceramics, and composites, as well as nanostructured materials and metallic glasses, with a particular emphasis on investigating their tailored and tunable properties. In addition, his research endeavors have ventured into the realm of materials for energy storage and conversion, as well as printed electronics