Seminar DPE: Dr. Matej Fekete

We cordially invite you to a Department of Physical Electronics seminary lecture. The speaker is Dr. Matej Fekete from our departmenty.

Mgr. Matej Fekete, Ph.D. - On the thermal shock behavior of MAX phase thin films

Thermal shock resistance is one of the performance-defining properties for applications where extreme temperature gradients are required. The thermal shock resistance of a material can be described by means of the thermal shock parameter R_T. The presented thermo-mechanical properties required for R_T calculation are quantum-mechanically predicted and experimentally determined and compared for Ti₃AlC₂ and Cr₂AlC MAX phases. The coatings are synthesized utilizing direct-current magnetron sputtering without additional heating, followed by vacuum annealing. It is shown that the R_T of both Ti₃AlC₂ and Cr₂AlC obtained via simulations are in good agreement with the experimentally obtained ones. Comparing the MAX phase coatings, both experiments and simulations indicate superior thermal shock behavior of Ti₃AlC₂ compared to Cr₂AlC, attributed primarily to the larger linear coefficient of thermal expansion of Cr₂AlC. The presented results underline the potential of ab initio calculations for predicting the thermal shock behavior of ionically-covalently bonded materials.