At the last international meeting on recrystallisation and grain growth there was general consensus that there was a need to incorporate experimental microstructures as starting configurations for computer models of various kinds. In two dimensions (2D) this is relatively straight forward since microstructures can be imaged in 2D at various length scales by a number of well know techniques such...

We have previously described the development of a μSL system using a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) for dynamic pattern generation and an ultraviolet (UV) lamp filtered at 365 nm for crosslinking the photoreactive polymer solution. The μSL system was designed with x-y resolution of ~2 μm and a vertical (z) resolution of ~1 μm (with practical limitations on vertical resolution of ~30 μm result...

This article reviews our recent experimental studies of domain wall (DW) resistivity in epitaxial transition metal ferromagnetic thin film microstructures with stripe domains. The results are presented and analysed in the context of models of DW scattering and conventional magnetoresistance (MR) effects in ferromagnetic metals. Microstructures of progressively higher magnetic anisotropy and thu...

Ambient-temperature fracture toughness and fatigue crack propagation behavior are investigated in a wide range of (g 1 a2) TiAl microstructures, including single-phase g, duplex, coarse lamellar (1 to 2 mm colony size (D) and 2.0 mm lamellar spacing (l)), fine lamellar (D ; 150 mm, l 5 1.3 to 2.0 mm), and a powder metallurgy (P/M) lamellar microstructure (D 5 65 mm, l 5 0.2 mm). The influences ...

Micropatterning of hydrogels is potentially useful for a variety of applications, including tissue engineering, fundamental biological studies, diagnostics, and high-throughput screening. Although synthetic polymers have been developed for these applications, natural polymers such as polysaccharides may have advantages for biological samples and cell-based devices because they are natural compo...

Quantifying the connectivity of material microstructures is important for a wide range of applications from filters to biomaterials. Currently, the most used measure of connectivity is the Euler number, which is a topological invariant. Topology alone, however, is not sufficient for most practical purposes. In this study, we use our recently introduced connectivity measure, called the contour t...

We present an optimization method to design three-dimensional composite microstructures with multifunctional characteristics. To illustrate the fascinating types of microstructures that can arise in multifunctional optimization, we apply our methodology to the study the simultaneous transport of heat and electricity in three-dimensional, two-phase composites. We assume that phase 1 has a high t...

In this paper we describe a microfabrication-derived approach for defining interactions between distinct groups of cells and integrating biosensors with cellular micropatterns. In this approach, photoresist lithography was employed to micropattern cell-adhesive ligand (collagen I) on silane-modified glass substrates. Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) photolithography was then used to fabricate hydrog...

Designing optimal microstructures for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrodes is complicated due to the multitude of electro-chemo-physical phenomena taking place simultaneously that directly affect working conditions of a SOFC electrode and its performance. In this study, a new design paradigm is presented to obtain a balance between electrochemical sites in the form of triple phase boundary (...