Research Highlights

Elucidating electron spatial confinement in 2-d materials

In situ growth and metal adsorption experiments confirmed the broad bell-shaped component (BSC) of the broad diffraction background results from electron spatial confinement.

Assembling and Orienting Anisotropic Nanostructures

Nonspherical nanostructures were assembled to form 2D and 3D structures via functionalized polymers.

Cuckoo-Inspired, Fast Model Design of High-Entropy Alloys

We accelerate computational design of high-entropy alloys with targeted disorder by ultrafast model generation using a metaheuristic Hybrid Cuckoo Search (CS).

Light induced Weyl semimetals with exceptional ballistic transport

Topological phase transitions may be controlled by a coherent light-induced phononic symmetry switch, without the application of static electric or magnetic fields.

Linking local structure order in metallic glass and competing crystalline phases

Short- and medium-range orders in Al90Tb10 glass are shown to be similar to structures of competing crystalline phases.

Critical role of electron correlations on exchange interactions and spin excitations

Including nonlocal electron correlations in electronic structure calculations yields spin excitations consistent with inelastic neutron-scattering measurements in CrI3.

Novel SmCo manufacturing method improves economic competitiveness

CMI researchers at Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University and Purdue University conducted the research for this highlight

Annual net cash flow for different levels (X% wt.) of CM powder addition (NPV of all cash flows indicated)

Ce-substituted SmCo5 retains huge magnetic anisotropy

CMI researchers at Ames Laboratory conducted the research for this highlight

Easy and hard axes magnetization for single crystals of the new Ce/Sm/Co/Cu material and their extrapolations to crossing record-high Ha = ~30 T. The upper insert - general appearance of the single crystals, the lower insert - literature data, Ha for single crystal of SmCo5 (Strnat, 1988).

High-performance critical-element-free permanent magnets

CMI researchers at Ames Laboratory conducted the research for this highlight

Hysteresis loops (top) for L10 FeNi as synthesized (black) and treated with concentrated HCl (red), demonstrating enhanced remanence and coercivity; bottom panel shows exceptional temperature dependence of coercivities in FeNi (red).

Sm2Fe17N3 as a cost-effective high-performance magnet

CMI researchers at Ames Laboratory conducted the research for this highlight

Hysteresis loops for Sm2Fe17 nitrided at 1 bar N2 pressure, yielding incomplete nitrogenation and low coercivity (red), and for sample nitrided at 100 bar, yielding full nitrogenation to Sm2Fe17N3 with ~ 8 kOe coercivity.