Mingwei Zhang Advances Alloy Design with NSF CAREER Award
Mingwei Zhang, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Davis, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program, or CAREER, award to investigate local chemical ordering in complex concentrated alloys and how it controls mechanical properties.
One of the NSF’s most prestigious honors, the CAREER award supports early-career faculty who demonstrate strong potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and become leaders in advancing the mission of their department or organization.
Zhang’s research focuses on the atomic-scale mechanisms behind the mechanical properties of complex concentrated alloys, or CCAs. CCAs are materials composed of three or more elements at high concentrations and are promising for use in extreme environments.
Computational models consistently predict that local chemical ordering, or LCO — the arrangement of atoms due to their preference for being near certain other atoms — plays a crucial role in determining properties like strength and ductility. However, due to a lack of quantitative experimental validation, a research bottleneck has emerged.
The CAREER award will enable Zhang’s group to build an experimental pipeline to validate computational models and release that bottleneck. Zhang will integrate cutting-edge synchrotron X-ray scattering, neutron diffraction and advanced electron microscopy techniques to directly measure and visualize LCO in complex alloys.
By linking these measurements of local chemical ordering to mechanical testing, Zhang’s team aims to establish the quantitative connection between atomic arrangements and mechanical properties.
“This has been an acute gap in materials science,” Zhang said. “This knowledge is essential for designing next-generational high-performance structural alloys for applications in aerospace, defense and energy.”
To conduct their experiments, Zhang’s group will partner with national labs, including Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to utilize their state-of-the-art instrumentation.
These partnerships will allow Zhang to examine complex concentrated alloys from the atomic level to the bulk scale, revealing how tiny structural and chemical features shape a material’s overall performance.
Additionally, the CAREER award will support Zhang’s efforts in developing comprehensive educational resources, specifically Transmission Electron Microscopy, or TEM, video tutorials, that will make electron microscopy accessible to students and researchers who might otherwise lack these opportunities due to prohibitive costs and limited access to expert mentors.
Zhang is enthusiastic about the opportunities this award will open for his students, enabling them to conduct groundbreaking research and develop crucial career-building skills. For Zhang, the validation he feels from receiving the prestigious CAREER award is made more meaningful by the opportunity to advance education.
“Receiving this award felt like a vote of confidence from the scientific community that our approach is sound and that the questions we’re asking matter,” he said. “Knowing that the video tutorials and training resources we'll develop might help struggling students understand electron microscopy or make Transmission Electron Microscopy training more accessible to underrepresented groups in STEM adds a dimension of purpose beyond the research itself. That's something I'm genuinely excited about.”
