Advanced and Functional Materials

The group's present areas of research include microstructure and property relationships of functional materials, in particular of:

1. Complex metal alloys such as magnetic shape memory alloys (MSMAs), radiation resistant high entropy alloys (HEAs) and next generation ferritic-martensitic (F/M) alloys for fission and fusion applications

2. Composites such as metal-ceramic and ceramic-ceramic composites

3. Nanomaterials based on titania, alumina, silica, and semiconductors such as CuSbS₂

AFM group core knowledge and capabilities are in controlling and characterization of materials microstructure and properties. At the moment AFM group is participating in three different joint projects:

• THERAD-project funded by the Academy of Finland, where AFM group is responsible of developing new IR filter preparation techniques based on semiconductor-dielectric composites
• HEAFNA-project initiated by European Energy Research Area (EERA), where AFM group is involved in developing powder based irradiation resistant FeCrNiMn-HEAs
• M4F-project funded by the EU, where AFM group is responsible for developing nanoindentation techniques for obtaining mechanical properties of irradiated materials based on ball nanoindentation data.

In addition, a company funded project on developing new filter material technologies is carried out.

The main tools used by the group are various microscopy techniques at different scales (i.e., optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and related analysis (EDS, WDS, EBSD)) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM-STEM, EDS). XRD analyses are used extensively for crystallography. Other characterization techniques used include magnetic measurements (VSM), optical measurements (UV-Vis, IR), nanoindentation (NI) etc.