Grain size is an important feature that can determine strength, ductility, and toughness. It is widely used to characterize geologic and metallic samples. Interestingly, the underlying mathematics enables snow science to use grain size to determine the bond strength of snow crystals and to predict the likelihood of avalanches....
Read More >>Thin Film XRD
Characterization of thin films can be performed to identify properties including the composition, crystal structure, preferred orientation, and film thickness. The MCL has a few thin-film characterization tools, including the X’Pert XRD (x-ray diffraction) and the Hitachi TM 3030+ SEM (EDS or energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy). The crystal structure...
Read More >>Heat Capacity by the Sapphire Method
The heat capacity of a material is a crucial property to consider when determining its functionality in certain applications. The typical SI unit of heat capacity (Cp) is Joules per gram Kelvin (). It is a measurement of how sensitive a material is to changes in temperature due to...
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