Nagoya University · Materials Science
Professor Atsutomo Nakamura's research lab specializes in the fundamental mechanics and defect engineering of inorganic ceramics and semiconductors, with a focus on dislocation dynamics, plasticity, and their functional applications. The lab investigates how dislocations govern mechanical behavior at the nanoscale, particularly in perovskites like SrTiO3 and wide-bandgap semiconductors such as ZnS and AgCl, using innovative techniques like photoindentation and in situ electron microscopy. A key research direction involves manipulating chemical composition and crystal structure to enhance room-temperature ductility and enable dislocation-based functionalities in traditionally brittle materials. The lab also pioneers methods to exploit dislocations as templates for creating ordered nanostructures, such as conductive nanowire arrays, for next-generation electronic and functional materials.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
It was recently found that extremely large plasticity is exhibited in bulk compression of single-crystal ZnS in complete darkness. Such effects are believed to be caused by the interactions between dislocations and photoexcited electrons and/or holes. However, methods for evaluating dislocation behavior in such semiconductors with small dimensions under a particular light condition had not been well established. Here, we propose the "photoindentation" technique to solve this issue by combining n
Dislocation-based functionalities in inorganic ceramics and semiconductors are drawing increasing attention, contrasting the conventional belief that the majority of ceramic materials are brittle at room temperature. Understanding the dislocation behavior in ceramics and advanced semiconducting materials is therefore critical for the mechanical reliability of such materials and devices designed for harvesting the dislocation-based functionalities. Here we compare the mechanical testing between i
Alumina bicrystals with a [100] 2° tilt grain boundary, including a slight twist component, were fabricated using diffusion bonding to study the change in structure due to the presence of the twist component. The resulting grain boundary structure was investigated by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and compared with that of the pure 2° tilt grain boundary. It was confirmed that the pure 2° tilt boundary was composed of basal dislocations similar to those produced by basa
First principles calculations were performed to understand an electronic origin of high ductility in silver chloride (AgCl) with the rock salt structure. From calculations of generalised stacking fault energies for different slip systems, it was found that only the {1 1 0} slip system is favourably activated in sodium chloride (NaCl) with the same rock salt structure, whereas AgCl shows three kinds of possible slip systems along the direction on the {0 0 1}, {1 1 0}, and {1 1 1} planes, which is
Oxide materials have the potential to exhibit superior mechanical properties in terms of high yield point, high melting point, and high chemical stability. Despite this, they are not widely used as a structural material due to their brittle nature. However, this study shows enhanced room-temperature plasticity of strontium titanate (SrTiO3) crystals through the control of the chemical composition. It is shown that the deformation behavior of SrTiO3 crystals at room temperature depends on the Sr/
A dislocation in a crystalline material has dangling bonds at its core and a strong strain field in its vicinity. Consequently, the dislocation attracts solute atoms and forms a so-called Cottrell atmosphere along the dislocation. A crystalline dislocation can be used as a template to produce nanowires by selectively doping foreign atoms along the dislocation. However, control of the configuration, spacing, and density of the formed periodic nanowire array has heretofore been extremely difficult
An enormous change in the dislocation-mediated plasticity has been found in a bulk semiconductor that exhibits the photoplastic effect. Herein, we report that UV (365 nm) light irradiation during mechanical testing dramatically decreases the fracture toughness of ZnS. The crack tip toughness on a (001) single-crystal ZnS, as measured by the near-tip crack opening displacement method, is increased by ∼45% in complete darkness compared to that in UV light. The increase in fracture toughness is att
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