TMS 2008: Lectures

Date: Monday, March 10 • 7 to 8 a.m.
Topic: “Design for the Other 90%”
Speaker: Cynthia E. Smith, Curator, Design for the Other 90% Exhibit, Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

About the Topic
Design for the Other 90% explores a growing movement among designers to develop solutions for the 5.8 billion people across the globe (90 percent of the world’s total population) not traditionally served by the professional design community. Through local and global partnerships, individual designers and organizations are finding unique ways to address the lack of basic necessities faced by the poor and marginalized around the world. Each of the objects in the exhibit tells a story and is a window into this expanding field of design, demonstrating how design can be a dynamic force in transforming and, in many cases, saving lives.

About the Speaker
Cynthia Smith most recently completed her master’s degree in public administration at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, integrating her work experience with her advocacy and activism on the issues of human rights and social justice. While at Harvard, she co-authored The Politics of Genocide: US Rhetoric vs. Inaction in Darfur for the Kennedy School Review and joined a Graduate School of Design team to plan a new national park in response to the expanding sprawl north of Dallas. Trained as an industrial designer, for the past decade she planned and designed projects for cultural institutions, resulting in numerous award winning projects. A common thread in all her work is collaborating to bring a collective idea into an innovative form.

To attend this lecture, sign up on the conference registration form.

Date: Monday, March 10
Topic: “Computational Materials Science & Engineering: What is it and how do we Take Advantage?”
Speaker: Katsuyo Thornton, Assistant Professor, Materials Science and Engineering, University of Michigan
Recipient of the TMS Early Career Faculty Fellow Award

While it is a relatively new development in materials science and engineering (MSE), the use of computational tools has been prevalent in other engineering fields in the last decade, both in academic and industrial settings. Today, the abundance of computational tools, both for simulation and analysis of experimental results, are in place to be expoited. This lecture will address why experimentalists and theorists should become familiar with and utilize many of the standard materials science and engineering computational tools. An overview of the available methodologies, their applications and case studies will be presented.

This lecture is free. You may order a box lunch on the conference registration form.

Date: Monday, March 10
Topic: “High Performance Structural Metals: an Undervalued but Critical Enabling Technology”
Speaker: James C. Williams, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University

About the Topic
For years, better products have been enabled by improved materials of construction. For the most part, these materials have been metallic, although engineering plastics and some ceramics also have been contributors. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Tau Beta Pi list of the ten most important engineering achievements of the 20th century contained seven items that could not have been accomplished without advances in materials technology. Today, continuing advances in metallic structural materials are still critical to the creation and production of competitive products. However, federal funding for this effort has dwindled in favor of other trendy topics, leaving a significant list of “unfinished business.” This talk will describe some of the past advances in structural materials and outline some important opportunities going forward. As appropriate, the reality (or lack thereof) of some of the trendy topics also will be assessed and some relative value comparisons will be offered.

This lecture is free.

Date: Monday, March 10
Topic: Nanoscale Metal Silicides
Speaker: L.J. Chen, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University

About the Topic
As the integrated circuits industry (IC) moves into the nano era, scaling down the metal silicide contacts and gates has become an important issue. Many efforts with the bottom-up approach have been made to fabricate nanoscale silicdes without elaborate microlithography. As opposed to zero-dimensional nanocrystals, metallic nanowires (NWs) can act both as interconnects for the transport of charge carriers as well as active device elements.

The early focus on the study of epitaxial silicide NWs has been on the rare-earth/Si systems, based on the anisotropic lattice mismatch between silicides and Si substrates. The NW growth in isotropic systems was found to proceed via the formation of a twinned structure to break the symmetry of the interface and lead to the asymmetric growth of epitaxial CoSi2 and NiSi2 NWs. The use of nitride-mediated epitaxy method effectively diminished the flux of metal atoms and allowed sufficient time for the strain to be released by means of shape transition during the epitaxial growth of a number of silicide NWs at elevated temperatures. In addition, a large number of free-standing silicide nanowires have been grown by a variety of methods. NiSi/Si/NiSi nanowire heterostructures were fabricated.

In this talk, a historical account of evolving roles of metal silicides in the context of IC device applications will be presented. Epitaxial growth of metal silicides on silicon and formation of amorphous interlayers in the metal/Si systems will be reviewed. Synthesis and applications of metal silicide nanowires will be described, and the future outlook will be addressed.

This lecture is free.

For additional information regarding this meeting, please complete the TMS Meetings Mailing List Form or contact:

TMS Meeting Services
184 Thorn Hill Road
Warrendale, PA 15086 USA
Tel: (724) 776-9000 x243
Fax: (724) 776-3770
Email: mtgserv@tms.org