High performance materials play an important role in modern society as they enable state-of-the-art technologies. To utilize the full potential of high performance materials a deeper understanding of microstructural elements and correlated mechanical properties over several length scales is necessary.

The research group “Mechanical Properties and High Performance Materials” at the Department for Physical Metallurgy and Materials Testing is working on the identification and analysis of microstructural aspects such as phases, interfaces, crystal structures, precipitates and other defects to reveal their influence on the mechanical properties.

To investigate rate- and temperature-dependent plastic deformation mechanisms on the microscale instrumented nanoindentation and uniaxial micro-compression experiments are performed, as well as tension and compression experiments on the macroscopic scale. The mechanical data can be correlated with results from structural and chemical high-resolution techniques i.e. SEM, TEM and APT. Based on this investigations reliable, mechanistic models for the dominant deformation mechanisms of high performance materials can be developed.

Current research topics involve, but are not limited to: intermetallics, materials with high Peierls-potential, high-entropy alloys, nanocrystalline and ultrafine-grained materials, nanocomposites, amorphous metals and nanostructured thin films.