High flyers in nano research

More cost-efficient aircraft, faster smartphones, longer-lasting mobile devices – new materials, engineered with great precision right down to the nanostructural level, are making it possible to create these kinds of environmentally friendly and user-friendly technologies. Mathematicians at the University of Graz have developed a method by which the chemical composition of these materials can be shown in 3D at the atomic level. These discoveries have just been published in the scientific journal Nanoscale.

“In the case of alloys, for example, chemical phase transitions play a significant role that cannot be satisfactorily illustrated using existing methods. However, the distribution of elements at a nanostructural level has major effects on the characteristics of materials,” explains Kristian Bredies, from the Institute of Mathematics and Scientific Computing at the University of Graz. To facilitate the use of these alloys in the production of light but strong aircraft bodies or highly efficient semiconductors, we need to be able to analyse the exact structure and chemical composition of the material. The electron tomography used for this purpose has until now only provided blurred images. Bredies and his team have now found an algorithm that eliminates the noise and allows highly precise 3D imaging at the nano level.

This method was developed in collaboration with Graz University of Technology. In the Centre for Electron Microscopy there, where the tomographic data is captured, the new method is already in use. “Since this is basic research, it is of course likely that there will be other applications, for example in the biosciences or in medicine,” adds Bredies.

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