Frontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences
Tohoku University

Liquid Metal Dealloying (LMD) is a new elaboration technique allowing to produce finely structured and porous materials with a sub-micron length-scale (see Fig. 1.a and 1.b). The applications of these new materials require to control the properties of the nano/microstructure, in particular its topology (connected or not) and the size of the ligaments. Experiments show that these properties are primarily controlled by the formation mechanism at the dealloying front but are also affected by the coarsening mechanism of the connected microstructure occurring during the process. In order to improve the microstructures obtained from LMD, a precise understanding of the physical processes involved of these mechanisms is required. My research consists in developing numerical models in synergy with experiments and curring-edge characterization techniques such as X-ray tomograpghy (see Fig. 1.c) to improve our understanding of the LMD process. In particular, I am developping phase-field models (see Fig.1.d), numerical tools especially suited to investigate free-boundary problems involving complex topology changes encountered in this fabrication technique. More precisely, we will focus on the formation mechanism occurring at the dealloying front and the following coarsening behavior leading to a significant increase of the structure length-scale.