In June 2024 Markus Alfreider from the Chair of Materials Physics received an ESPRIT grant from the Austrian science fund. The ESPRIT program aims to improve the skills and professional development of researchers early in their research careers by giving them the opportunity to lead an independent research project. Within the project „Individual grain boundary characterization using spectroscopy (INSPECT)” Markus Alfreider will aim to establish a framework to determine the actual atomistic characteristics of individual grain boundaries within technologically relevant metallic alloys. This will be addressed by a novel combination of a unique micromechanical spectroscopy technique in conjunction with spatially resolved valence electron energy loss spectroscopy, both of which are capable of probing sub-micrometer sized volumes. Additional ab initio simulations and advanced chemical tomography will complement these experiments and lead to an in-depth understanding of the fundamental physics of grain boundaries.
