Speaker: Prof. Brian Abbey,
Department of Physics, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC 3086, Australia
and Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, Melbourne, VIC 3168, Australia

Title:Spatially and Temporally Resolved Materials Characterization across the Lengthscales via Coherent X-ray Diffraction

Abstract:
Understanding and predicting material behaviour requires characterisation over a large range of lengthscales and is intrinsically a multi-dimensional problem. In this talk I will summarize recent progress in the coherent X-ray sciences for the high-resolution characterisation of materials. X-ray methods hold a distinct advantage for characterizing 3D microstructures and the plasticity behaviour of bulk materials. X-rays can also access all of the lengthscales relevant to observing so-called ‘size effects’ and so can advance our fundamental understanding of these phenomena. The recent availability of ultrafast coherent X-ray sources has also created an entirely new area of opportunity for observing dynamical effects in materials whose potential is only just starting to be fully realised. To determine how all of these new X-ray techniques and facilities can best serve the materials science community is currently a topic of considerable importance. As well as summarizing some of the recent key breakthroughs in coherent X-ray characterisation of materials I will also talk about some of the key problems that we could look at solving using these new methods within the next few years.