Achievement

Shape memory alloys (SMAs), a focus of several of our IGERT faculty and students, have important uses for example as actuators for medical and aerospace applications. Among a number of recent advances, a collaboration between Karaman's, Lagoudas', and Zhang's groups recently demonstrated SMA behavior in NiMnCoIn alloy thin films, following concerted efforts among these IGERT faculty to develop ideas for new nanoscale SMA configurations, which also led to a funded NSF-NIRT collaboration in the previous year. The new result is important as it allows for potential microdevices with activation at high speeds not typically available with similar materials. CoPI Cagin and trainees K. Williams, Yegin, and Hartl have also been directly involved in collaborative projects on SMA behavior, with 31 publications in this area among these investigators this year, and new funding awarded including a Materials World Network US-Japan collaboration headquartered at TAMU.