A team of scientists led by researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab has uncovered clues at the atomic level that could lead to much tougher advanced ceramics for applications such as gas turbine engines.

Berkeley Lab scientists (l-r) Nigel Browning, Alexander Ziegler, and Robert Ritchie.

The team has produced atomic-resolution images of silicon nitride ceramics that were sintered with oxides of rare earth elements to toughen them and prevent cracks from spreading. The images revealed, for the first time, the exact location of each rare-earth atom in the final material and how their presence affected toughness.

According to Robert Ritchie, a materials scientist with Berkeley Lab and the University of California at Berkeley, "Our findings are a prime factor in understanding the origin of the mechanical properties in advanced ceramics, and should make it possible to do the precise tailoring in the future that will critically improve the performances of these materials over a wide range of applications."

Find out more at: www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-atomic-clues.html