Victor Vasquez, associate professor in the chemical and materials engineering department, and researchers out of the University of California, San Diego have recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation to pursue advanced manufacturing of unique hexaboride ceramics. These ceramics will serve as thermal neutron detectors and will help researchers develop more efficient, smaller nuclear reactor systems for a number of applications, including improving our ability to conduct interstellar travel.
Vasquez will draw on his expertise using fundamental modeling approaches to understand and develop potential new high entropy hexaboride ceramics. Density functional theory (DFT) and supercomputing methods will be used to engineer and understand these new materials at atomic levels. Promising candidates will then proposed to collaborators at UCSD for synthesis, characterization and other experimental aspects of the project. A feedback loop process is used between the two institutions to guide both the experimental and modeling efforts.
Under the Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation, the project is part of the NSF Advanced Manufacturing program. The work adds to the College of Engineering’s strategic focus on an interdisciplinary research cluster in advanced manufacturing.
