January 2024: Our paper entitled "The anisotropy of deformation twinning in bcc materials: Mechanical loading, temperature effect, and twin–twin interaction" is published in Acta Materialia. Congratulations, Amir, Mehrab, and Jamie!
Septemper 2023: Dr. Cao is elected as an Associate Editor of ASME Journal of Engineering Materials and Technology (JEMT).
July 2023: Dr. Cao has been promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure.
March 2023: Our invited review paper entitled "Twinning in Hexagonal Close-Packed Materials: The Role of Phase Transformation" is published in Metals. Congratulations, Amir, Jamie, and Mehrab!
December 2022: Dr. Cao received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award ($554,915) to explore the thermomechanical processing in titanium alloys. Many thanks to the NSF for this award.
September 2022: Our paper entitled "The role of mechanical loading in bcc-hcp phase transition: tension-compression asymmetry and twin formation" is published in Acta Materialia. Congratulations, Amir, Jamie, and Mehrab!
August 2022: Dr. Cao visited Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM and gave a seminar on “Multiscale Modeling of Deformation.”
July 2022: Amir passed his Ph.D. dissertation defense on July 15, 2022. Congratulations, Dr. Zahiri!
May 2022: Amir got first place award in the ME graduate poster contest. Congratulations, Amir!
April 2022: Dr. Cao visited the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, CO and gave a seminar on “Multiscale Modeling of Deformation and Failure Processes.”
March 2022: Our group in TMS 2022, Anaheim, CA: Dr. Cao gave a talk on "Martensitic Transformation-mediated Twin Nucleation in Hexagonal Close Packed Metals”; Amir gave a talk on "Formation of {11-22} Contraction Twins in Titanium through Reversible Martensitic Phase Transformation" and a poster on "Transformation-induced Plasticity in Omega Titanium".
February 2022: Dr. Cao received funding from NSF to work on the project "RII TRACK-4: NSF: Establish predictive crystal plasticity models with complete deformation twinning mechanism"!
November 2021: Tengfei’s 1st authored paper in collaboration with Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) "Dislocation transmission across Σ3{112} incoherent twin boundary: a combined atomistic and phase-field study" is published in Acta Materialia. Congratulations, Tengfei!
October 2021: Amir is awarded the prestigious Dean’s Merit Scholarship for his excellent research and academic achievements. Congratulations, Amir!
September 2021: Our paper entitled "On the formation of {11-22} boundary via {10-12}-{01-12} twin–twin interaction in magnesium" is published in Computational Materials Science. Congratulations, Amir and Jamie!
August 2021: Mr. Mehrab Lotfpour joined our group. Welcome, Mehrab!
June 2021: Our paper entitled "Elastic-interaction-induced anisotropic growth of dislocation loop arrays" is published in Journal of Materials Research. Congratulations, Pranay and Tengfei!
May 2021: Dr. Ehsan Moshkelgosha joined our group. Welcome, Ehsan!
April 2021: Amir is awarded the prestigious Outstanding Graduate Student Scholarship for his excellent research and academic achievements. Congratulations, Amir!
December 2020: Our paper entitled "Formation of {11-22} contraction twins in titanium through reversible martensitic phase transformation" is published in Scripta Materialia. Congratulations, Amir and Jamie!
December 2020: Our paper entitled "Transformation-induced plasticity in omega titanium" is published in Journal of Applied Physics. Congratulations, Amir, Jamie, Tengfei and Pranay!
August 2020: Our paper entitled "Nucleation of {1012} Twins in Magnesium through Reversible Martensitic Phase Transformation" is published in Metals. Congratulations, Jamie and Amir!
March 2020: Our project, "CDS&E: Nanoconfined Heating via Ultrahigh-repetition-rate Lasers for Enhanced Surface Processing," in collaboration with Dr. Yan Wang in our department is funded by NSF CBET Thermal Transport Processes!
March 2020: Ms. Daniela Saldate joined our group. Welcome, Daniela!
February 2020: Our group in TMS 2020, San Diego, CA: Amir gave a talk on "Strong strain hardening in ultrafast melt-quenched nanocrystalline Cu: the role of fivefold twins"; Pranay gave a talk on "Dislocation Interactions and the Formation of Low-angle Grain Boundary”;Tengfei gave a talk on "Screw Dislocation Transmission Across the Σ3{112} Twin Boundary in Face Centered Cubic Copper". Congratulations, Amir, Pranay, and Tengfei!
January 2020: Mr. Jamie Ombogo joined our group. Welcome, Jamie!
August 2019: Our paper entitled "Strong strain hardening in ultrafast melt-quenched nanocrystalline Cu: the role of fivefold twins" is published in Journal of Applied Physics. Congratulations, Amir and Pranay!
March 2019: Dr. Cao gave a talk at the TMS 2019 conference held in San Antonio, TX. The topic is "Phase-field modeling of fracture and amorphization."
March 2019: Our paper entitled "Significantly enhanced convective heat transfer through surface modification in nanochannels" is published in International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. Congratulations, Pranay and Tengfei!
October 2018: Dr. Cao received NASA Seed funding to work on Grain boundary engineering of thermoelectric materials!
August 2017: Ms. Xixi Guo joined the group (co-advised with Dr. Yan Wang). Welcome, Xixi!
July 2018: Dr. Cao gave a talk at the SIAM 2018 conference held in Portland, OR. The topic is "Phase-field modeling of dislocations and amorphization."
June 2018: Our paper entitled "Lattice thermal transport in superhard hexagonal diamond and wurtzite boron nitride: A comparative study with cubic diamond and cubic boron nitride" is published in Carbon. Congratulations, Pranay!
June 2018: Mr. Tengfei Ma will spend this summer in Los Alamos National Laboratory to work with our collaborators on developing atomistically informed grain boundaries in phase-field model.
June 2018: Mr. Pranay Chakraborty will spend this summer in Los Alamos National Laboratory to work with our collaborators on upscaling of fracture evolution.
May 2018: Our invited review paper entitled "Carbon-Based Materials for Thermoelectrics" is published in Advances in Condensed Matter Physics. Congratulations, Pranay, Tengfei, and Amir!
March 2018: Dr. Cao is highlighted in 3/8/3018's NevadaToday for the representation of women in the STEM field.
August 2017: Mr. Tengfei Ma joined the group (co-advised with Dr. Yan Wang). Welcome, Tengfei!
August 2017: Mr. Amir Zahiri joined the group. Welcome, Amir!
August 2017: Dr. Cao's paper entitled "Effect of texture and grain size on the residual stress of nanocrystalline thin films" is published in Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering.
July 2017: Pranay's paper entitled "Ultralow lattice thermal conductivity of the random multilayer structure with lattice imperfection" is published in Scientific Reports. Congratulations, Pranay!
July 2017: Dr. Cao received funding from NSF CMMI Mechanics of Materials and Structures (MOMS) to work on superhard boron carbide! We will work closely with Dr. Qi An's group in the Chemical & Materials Engineering Department on this exciting project.
April 2017: Dr. Cao gave a talk at the MRS 2017 conference held in Phoenix, AZ. The topic is "Heterogeneous Residual Stress in Nanocrystalline Cu."
April 2017: Mr. Pranay Chakraborty joined the group (co-advised with Dr. Yan Wang). Welcome, Pranay!
September 2016: Dr. Cao gave a presentation at the Dislocation 2016 conference held in West Lafayette, IN. The topic is "Adding grain boundaries, stacking faults and cross slip to phase-field dislocation dynamics."
July 2016: The Micro/Nano Mechanics Lab is found in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno.