Defects, such as vacancies, dislocations, and grain boundaries, in many ionic and covalent crystals, including semiconductors, can carry charges. These charged defects play essential roles in the mechanical, electrical, optical, thermal, and phase transition properties of these materials. In addition, local chemistry segregation in defects such as solute decoration of dislocations may determine material behavior for both metals and ceramics. These charged and chemical defects offer opportunities to modify material and device properties, locally and globally, via external fields. This emerging field of study provides a novel platform to realize materials, structures, and novel devices. This Frontiers of Materials Award Symposium covers the topics of novel experiments, materials theory, and numerical simulations to realize, characterize, and control charged and chemical defects in a broad range of materials.
The scope includes, but is not limited to, the following areas:
· Experiments, theories, and simulations on the structures and properties of charged defects
· Electro-plasticity, plasto-electricity, and photo-plasticity in both metallic and non-metallic materials
· The coupling of mechanical and functional properties due to charged and chemical defects
· Quantum effects with dislocations and other defects in a wide range of materials, including diamond and 2D materials
· Modifying electronic structures of the defects to tune mechanical properties such as doping
· Local chemical segregations in the defects to tune mechanical and functional properties
· Grain boundary engineering: manipulating charged and chemical grain boundaries to achieve exceptional material properties in both metallic and non-metallic materials
· Dislocation engineering: manipulating dislocation densities and characteristics to achieve exceptional material properties in both metallic and non-metallic materials