A scanning acoustic microscope based on picosecond ultrasonics.

We report on the development of a new type of scanning acoustic microscope. We use a femtosecond light pulse to generate a short sound pulse, and then focus this sound onto the sample by means of a specially designed and microfabricated acoustic lens of radius a few microns. The sound travels to the sample through a thin layer of water. The sound reflected from the sample is collected by the lens and then passes through a monolithically integrated optical resonant cavity. The induced change in the properties of this cavity are measured using a time-delayed probe light pulse. We describe some of the challenges involved in the construction and operation of this high-precision metrology apparatus and present some preliminary results.

Real-time measurement of stress and damage evolution during initial lithiation of crystalline silicon.

Crystalline to amorphous phase transformation during initial lithiation in (100) Si wafers is studied in an electrochemical cell with Li metal as the counter and reference electrode. During initial lithiation, a moving phase boundary advances into the wafer starting from the surface facing the lithium electrode, transforming crystalline Si into amorphous Li(x)Si. The resulting biaxial compressive stress in the amorphous layer is measured in situ, and it was observed to be ca. 0.5 GPa. High-resolution TEM images reveal a very sharp crystalline-amorphous phase boundary, with a thickness of ∼1 nm. Upon delithiation, the stress rapidly reverses and becomes tensile, and the amorphous layer begins to deform plastically at around 0.5 GPa. With continued delithiation, the yield stress increases in magnitude, culminating in a sudden fracture of the amorphous layer into microfragments, and the cracks extend into the underlying crystalline Si.

Adhesion and sliding response of a biologically inspired fibrillar surface: experimental observations.

Inspired by the adhesion mechanisms of several animal species such as geckos, beetles and flies, several efforts in designing and fabricating surface engineering strategies have been made recently to mimic the adhesive and frictional behaviour of biological foot pads. An important feature of such biological adhesion systems is the ability to switch between strong attachment and easy detachment, which is crucial for animal locomotion. Recent investigations have suggested that such a 'switching' mechanism can be achieved by the elastic anisotropy of the attachment pad, which renders the magnitude of the detachment force to be direction dependent. This suggestion is supported by the observations that the fibres of the foot pads in geckos and insects are oriented at an angle to the base and that geckos curl their toes backwards (digital hyperextension) while detaching from a surface. One of the promising bio-inspired architectures developed recently is a film-terminated fibrillar PDMS surface; this structure was demonstrated to result in superior detachment force and energy dissipation compared with a bulk PDMS surface. In this investigation, the film-terminated fibrillar architecture is modified by tilting the fibres to make the surface vertically more compliant and elastically anisotropic. The directional detachment and the sliding resistance between the tilted fibrillar surfaces and a spherical glass lens are measured: both show significant directional anisotropy. It is argued that the anisotropy introduced by the tilted fibres and the deformation-induced change in the compliance of the fibre layer are responsible for the observed anisotropy in the detachment force.

Enhancing mechanical properties of multiwall carbon nanotubes via sp3 interwall bridging.

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations under transverse shear, uniaxial compression, and pullout loading configurations are reported for multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with different fraction of interwall sp3 bonds. The interwall shear coupling in MWCNTs is shown to have a strong influence on load transfer and compressive load carrying capacity. A new continuum shear-coupled-shell model is developed to predict MWCNT buckling, which agrees very well with all MD results. This work demonstrates that MWCNTs can be engineered through control of interwall sp3 coupling to increase load transfer, buckling strength, and energy dissipation by nanotube pullout, all necessary features for good performance of nanocomposites.

Observations of transient high temperature vortical microstructures in solids during adiabatic shear banding.

By using a unique infrared high-speed camera especially constructed for recording highly transient temperature fields at the microscale, we are able to reveal the spatial and temporal microstructure within dynamically growing shear bands in metals. It is found that this structure is highly nonuniform and possesses a transient, short range periodicity in the direction of shear band growth in the form of an array of intense "hot spots" reminiscent of the well-known, shear-induced hydrodynamic instabilities in fluids. This is contrary to the prevailing classical view that describes the deformations and the temperatures within shear bands as being essentially one-dimensional fields. These observations are also reminiscent of the nonuniform structure of localized shear regions believed to exist, at an entirely different length scale, in the earth's lower crust and upper mantle.