2024 YPWLC final

UK

Emilia Russell

 Emilia Russell is a 2^nd year PhD student in the Department of Engineering at Durham University, currently investigating the impacts of mechanical strain on the electrical properties of 2-dimensional semiconductors. In her free time, she enjoys sailing and organising seminars from industry speakers with the Women’s Engineering Society at Durham.

Why strained semiconductors are like crinkle-cut crisps

When applying strain to 2-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides, it has been observed that the bandgap changes. The bandgap is the potential difference between the highest energy bounded (immobile) electrons and the delocalised (mobile) electrons.

Crinkle cut crisps taste better because they hold more salt, crinkle cut semiconductors insulate better because they hold more electrons.

This effect could be exploited in the next generation of synthetic skin. It could also be used to design flexible acetylene detectors to monitor food expiration, reducing food waste. To date, the relationship between mechanical strain and electronic properties has predominantly been shown through computational modelling. This research focuses on overcoming the issues that have hindered the realisation of these devices, such that the effects of strain on other semiconductor properties can be investigated. In turn, this will lead to a better understanding of the electrostatics and charge transport of these novel 2-D materials.

Hong Kong

Sihao Yu

Sihao is a 2nd year PhD student in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, under the supervision of Prof Louis Wong. He earned his BEng (2020) in Civil Engineering from Southeast University, China, followed by an MPhil (2023) in Geotechnical Engineering from Tongji University, China. His current research focuses on the application of artificial intelligence in geotechnical engineering practice, particularly advanced computer vision techniques.

In his spare time, Sihao enjoys outdoor activities like hiking and ball games

A deep learning-based framework for automatic rock core logging

Rock core logging plays a crucial role in obtaining geological and geotechnical information such as lithology and Rock Quality Designation (RQD). However, traditional rock core logging procedures are often tedious and time-consuming, especially for highly fractured rock cores. Have you ever imagined that such domain-professional work could be aided by artificial intelligence? Prof Louis Wong and his research team at HKU have developed an autonomous framework for performing core logging that mimics human processes.

This presentation will showcase ongoing research to further improve automatic lithology classification and RQD estimation. A deep learning-based framework has been trained to classify rock cores into different categories. Moreover, this framework can also segment cores at a high accuracy, allowing the subsequent automatic RQD calculation. Upon further verification, the plan is to update the framework and integrate it into a publicly accessible website for widespread use.

FEMS

Oliver Marian Preuß

Oliver studied Materials Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. After investigating the mechanical properties of diamond coatings during his Bachelor's thesis, he did his Master's thesis in the field of dislocations in ceramics in 2021, under the supervision of Dr Xufei Fang. Continuing this topic, he started a PhD on dislocation-based toughening in ceramics co-supervised by Prof Dr Jürgen Rödel and Dr Xufei Fang.

Oliver attended 3 international (incl. USA and Japan) and 5 national conferences and was the winner of the 2024 FEMS Master Thesis Award. His first paper achieved 'Editor’s Choice' by the American Ceramic Society and he also won three prizes in the ceramographic competition of the American Ceramic Society, including the Roland B Snow award for best-of-show. In his free-time, he practices luthiery and builds his own guitars.

Dislocation-Based Toughening and Damage-Tolerance in Oxide Ceramics

The growing research interest in dislocation tuned functionality in ceramics is evident, with the most recent proofs of concept for enhanced ferroelectric properties, electrical conductivity, and superconductivity via dislocations. In this study, we focus on dislocation-tuned mechanical properties and demonstrate that, by engineering high dislocation densities (up to 1014 per m2) into KNbO3 at room temperature, the fracture toughness can be increased by a factor of 2.8 compared to the reference.

A strong interaction between the dislocations and the ferroelectric domains was found, whose effect on the toughness is ruled out by a high-temperature indentation experiment. By an improved deformation technique, the dislocation density in MgO can reach over 1015 per m2, which leads to full crack suppression.