Materials of Your Future - Advances in Nanomaterials

Speaker: Ming Yu, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Louisville

Abstract: Materials with structure at the nanoscale level often have unique optical, electronic, and mechanical properties, and are slowly becoming commercialized and beginning to emerge as commodities. Discovery of new nanomaterials and then characterization are the essential research tasks in developing nanotechnology. Application of computational modeling in conjunction with experimental activities can accelerate advanced materials discovery and the development of new generation of nanomaterials, nanotechnology, and nanodevices. It is within the goal of Materials Genome Initiative (a new strategy for the computational modeling of novel materials to the level of a federal initiative, raised by Obama administration in 2011 ). In this lecture, I will briefly introduce how to model and design nanomaterials using computational simulations and demonstrate some examples from our recent research in designing SiC-based nanostructures including bucky-diamond SiC clusters, SiC cages, SiC nanowires, and SiC graphitic-like sheets.