The Department of Physics, Biology and Chemistry (IFM) at Linköping University in Sweden has been in operation for four decades and during that time expanded quite substantially. The number of employees is around 420, including 45 full professors and some 130 graduate students. In addition approximately 70 guest researchers visit us every year. The department is organized in 5 Scientific Areas; Applied Physics, Biology, Chemistry, Materials Physics, and Theory and Modeling. The MC2 project involves staff from two research groups Nanostructured Materials (part of Materials Physics) and Theoretical Physics (part of Theory and Modeling).
The department is also heavily engaged in undergraduate teaching. More than 200 courses are given every year for students in the sciences, engineering and teacher training programs.
Role in the project:
IFM is the hub for calculations of the thermodynamics, mechanical properties and microstrucural evolution in aluminum containing transition metal nitrides such as TiAlN. This is primarily done by ab initio methods such as density functional theory (DFT), DFT-molecular dynamics (DFT-MD), and continuum methods such as phase field simulations. All these calculations approaches require super computer power, which is obtained through the Swedish National supercomputer center (NSC) located at Linköping University.
Involved staff:
- Magnus Odén, Professor and head of Nanostructured Materials at IFM, is coordinating the activities at IFM in the MC2 project, and responsible for the reporting to funding agency Vinnova.
- Igor A. Abrikosov, Professor and head of Theory and Modeling at IFM, has an expert function in the project regarding ab initio calculations.
- Ferenc Tasnádi, Assoc. Professor in Theory and Modeling at IFM is the WP-leader of WP1. He performs ab intio calculations of tensorial properties of alloys, for example elastic constants for TiAlN.
- Klara Grönhagen, Post-doc in Nanostructured Materials at IFM, is performing phase-field simulations of microstructure evolution in aluminum containing transition metal nitrides such as TiAlN during spinodal decomposition at high temperature and extract the effective elastic modulus of such structures.
- Nina Shulumba, graduate student in Nanostructured Materials at IFM, is performing DFT-MD calculations of the thermodynamics in transition metal nitride alloys