Each year, researchers from across Penn State enter amazing images representing their research in materials into the Material Visualization Competition (MVC).The seventeen images below are all entries from 2020 (the twelfth year for the MVC) .
The MVC truly celebrates the quality of research in materials being conducted at Penn State.
Artist’s Statement: 2D materials are a field of study where a 1nm change in scale can have dramatic effects. This work captures that fact, and its connection to the “MATSE tetrahedron”, the interrelated nature of properties; structure; processing; and performance, which lie at the heart of the discipline. The colors observed are from different thicknesses of Bi2Te3, indicating the layer-dependent properties of layered materials. 1-5 layers are shades of green and blue while 6-10 transition from purple to pink and white. Thick white layers grow in lines at 60o from one another, capturing the symmetry of the underlying WS2. These formations lie atop grain boundaries in WS2, where thicker crystals nucleate. This highlights the interconnected nature of the MATSE tetrahedron: layer dependent properties are determined by the defect structure of the underlying WS2. Structure is in turn related to processing parameters during growth. All of these interrelated factors will affect the performance of the material.
Artist’s Statement: In this piece, I was deeply drawn to the scale-like cellular structures that were of interest in this material. The steely scales were then also emphasized through the natural sectioning that occurred between melt pool passes. These sections and scales reminded me of reptiles, and particularly snakes. I am personally terrified of snakes, although I know they are an essential part of the healthy ecosystem that Happy Valley is part of. With the inspiration of expressing the slithery aptitude of the image and maybe spreading a more positive mentality around snakes than I usually share, I used coloration similar to a milk snake with the natural melt pool sections as the sections of the snake. These colors particularly standout to me and I hope that they make the piece pop to the audience while reminding them of a scaly creature as well.
Artist’s Statement: Objects with core-shell structures can be found in many places in the world, from the artificial composites with nanoscale to the Earth. This picture exhibits this amazing structure from a micro perspective. It appears that two materials with different physical properties are closely linked.
Artist’s Statement: We usually describe surfaces by their color and surface texture as those appear to the eye. Highly appealing surfaces to humankind are the shiny, refracting, and highly reflecting surfaces of polished crystals with exotic colors, better known as gemstones. As flat, static and robust polished facets of gemstones are perceived, they reveal a whole different appearance at the atomic scale. Here, we are looking at an ultra-flat, polished surface of corundum, i.e. Sapphire. The surface texture at the atomic level is far from flat. On the contrary, the presented terraces with wavy edges seem to steadily flow over the surface following their very own dynamic.
Artist’s Statement: Defects in materials are fascinating for their structural features and they tremendously affect the material properties. Even though there are many ways to study defects in materials, directly visualizing them in their native form is very powerful to understand their complex structures. To that end, this image is taken from an electron microscope which is powerful enough to resolve features at nanometer length scales. This enables us to look at the defects present in materials and understand their origin (dislocations in 2D material in this particular example).
Artist’s Statement: An artist’s ability to visually solve problems can bring a new sense of creativity to the questions and problems we face in science. On the other hand, the research and critical thinking skills used in science teaches me to keep detailed notes, experiment with different artistic techniques, and push me to explore new ways of thinking. This interplay creates space for scientists and artists to learn from one another. In combining my materials science and artistic research, the audience experiences my processes firsthand. Artistically, I am converting the traditionally functional forms of bowls and providing them a more delicate and aesthetic purpose. Both ceramics thrown on the wheel and glass formed in a lab take careful skill developed through experience, experiment, and an understanding of theory. By fusing glass and ceramics in these pieces, you learn to visualize and understand the similarities of art and scientific research.
Artist’s Statement: The image as seen has come directly from my microscope image and has not been retouched at all. When focusing the microscope on the hydrogel fiber, I was surprised to see the incongruence in the fiber’s diameter. I had not been able to focus on a resubmerged fiber so well before, and it has taken many trial and errors to figure out the best way to get good images for our research. Getting this very sharp image is great so that we can see and compare this recovered hydrogel to others to advance our research and what we know. We know that there is uniformity in hydrogels that have not been previously strained, so the bumps on the edges are most likely from plastic deformation from straining the hydrogel. Further research is being done to study this observable phenomena.
Artist’s Statement: Scanning electron microscopy image of a breast tumor in its microenvironment. Metastatic cancer cells, labeled in green, are migrating away from the primary tumor and invading into the surrounding matrix to form tumors at secondary locations.
Artist’s Statement: The unmelted powder and the fracture surfaces have an analogy of an island used to be buried under the ocean before tidal weaves open up it.
Artist’s Statement: Growing up in Long Island—fifteen minutes from the ocean—I found myself daydreaming about the beach every moment of the school day. If I was not at school, I was by the ocean, walking the boardwalk, listening to the waves crash, or taking in the breeze coming off the watery front. It seems that I may never shake this feeling because after imaging my rhenium samples I found myself thinking of the beach once more. Using a Nikon L200ND optical microscope at 10X, Rhenium films deposited on a sapphire substrate were imaged. The sapphire substrate represents the ocean, while the rhenium films represent the sand.
Artist’s Statement: In a normal winter day that mixing calcium and carbonate ions in the lab results in the formation of most stable, boring micro-box structures of calcite, we could engineer the ion interactions with our magic additive to form calcium carbonate micro-plants in the lab! Here is how we bring spring into our lab during the winter!
Artist’s Statement: Saying goodbye to the deep blue ocean and the golden sunflowers, summer by the sea finally gives way to autumn by the mountain, embracing the amber leaves and purple sunset. They will finally be buried by the icy and snowy winter. Day after day, season following season, I maintain a well-ordered life in a world full of disorders while craving for subtle changes within the repetitions.
Artist’s Statement: My inspiration for this submission came from the way light interacts with oil on water, like spilled gasoline on wet pavement. Just like oil, polystyrene doesn't mix with water. I like to envision the hydrogel network as forming from a mesh of millions of tiny iridescent bubbles strung together to form a multicolored web.
Artist’s Statement: The microstructure inspires imagery of lightening bolts across a starry night sky.
Artist’s Statement: The microstructure inspires imagery of looking through a single snowflake falling through the sky, where the sun light is refracted by the ice crystal and the seven colors of the visual light spectrum manifest within the voids.
Artist’s Statement: The layer-like structure of polybutadiene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) (PBD-PEO) film makes people connect with ocean, where the lamellar are spreading away and forming waves.
Artist’s Statement: When we discuss additive manufacturing of metallic components, the melting process is one of the key components. However, as with all processes, this melting process is never perfect. Fabricated samples can end up with unmelted powder particles. When viewed in two dimensions, such as on a flat, polished surface, the imperfections are highlighted; but when viewed in three dimensions, these powder particles almost look purposeful.
