Phase Field Crystal Modelling Ken Elder, Oakland University, DMR-0413062

1. Phase Field Crystal Modelling Ken Elder, Oakland University, DMR-0413062 Over the past several years the PI has developed a method for modelling atomic structures on time scales orders of magnitude larger than standard methods. For example, this method is roughly a billion times faster than molecular dynamics for gold at a temperature of 800 C. This massive increase in time scales allows the simulation of technologically important phenomena with nano-scale resolution. On the right are examples of the simulation of eutectic (top) and dendritic (bottom) crystals from a supercooled melt. Such structures appear in a wide variety of commercially important processes such as the solidification of an engine block. The advantage of incorporating atomic structure is that mechanical properties are treated faithfully and can be predicted for the complex structures that often emerge in materials processing.

2. Phase Field Crystal Modelling Ken Elder, Oakland University, DMR-0413062 Student Involvement Undergraduate: Mark Katakowski – currently a PHD student in Medical Physics at Oakland U. Joel Berry – currently a PHD student in Physics at McGill University Graduate: Mikko Haataja – currently a faculty member at Princeton University Dissemination of Results Recent invited presentations: 10/26/04: NSF Workshop on Opportunities in Materials Theory 2004, Arlington VA 02/14/05: TMS 2005 134th Annual Meeting and Exhibition, San Francisco CA 04/26/05: Dept. of Physics, University of Memphis, Memphis TN 05/17/05: Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki Finland 06/08/05: Sharcnet Materials Science Summer School, McMaster U. Hamilton ON 07/26/05: Phase Field Workshop, Ohio State University, Columbus OH Publications: Elder, Katakowski, Haataja and Grant, Physical Review Letters, 88, 245701 (2002); Elder and Grant, Physical Review E, 70, 051605, 2004; Elder, Berry and Provatas, TMS Letters 2004, 3, 41 (2004).