Materials Matters

Vol. 1, No. 2

President's Journal

by Leslie Evelyn

During the past few months the Alabama A&M University Chapter of the Materials Research Society (AAMU-MRS) has been in steady pursuit of fame and fortune. Our fame/fortune ratio has exceeded unity, not for long I hope. Our venture has taken us as far north as Beantown (Boston for the purists) and as far south as Huntsville (Rocket City for the not-so-pure). During our ventures we have rubbed shoulders with and established contacts with other MRS university chapters around the country. This is good, for now we can find out just what our counterparts are up to. This issue of MM outlines other things that we have dabbled in and become involved with since we last had the chance to enlighten you (about one-quarter of a year ago). We have been feverishly preparing for and organizing the Second North Alabama Materials Research Student Conference (NAMRSC) which is upon us. This has resulted in a few things being put on the back burner. Regretably, we have not had the opportunity to eat pizza together as yet this semester but I assure you that after the conference regular meetings will resume and maybe a pizza lunch or two. There has also been some whispering of picnicing sometime before spring is over.

On a more serious note though, I encourage those of you who have not yet sent in your membership applications to the MRS to do so as soon as possible so that we may make true the saying, "there's strength in numbers."

To those individuals who have supported and helped out with our activities, we say thanks. Special recognition is extended to the Alabama Space Grant Consortium, the Materials Research Society-National Headquarters, the American Society of Materials-Huntsville Chapter and to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for their support for the NAMRSC.

Best wishes for the rest of the semester and congratulations to any who may graduate in May.

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Chapter Activities

Social Hour

The AAMU MRS has been sponsoring the bi-weekly social hours held in the physics department this semester in an effort to support local donut and cookie manufacturers and to get students and faculty out of their labs, offices and other hiding places long enough to get acquainted with one another. The effort so far seems to be fairly successful. Donations are what keep the donuts coming so don't forget to put some paper or valuable metal into the donation box. We would like to thank physics department chairman C. Lowe for getting the social hours started and Chris Cochrane for supply hot water and supplies for coffee and tea.

Rheomagic

In January we showed the video "Rheomagic"; a short film produced by the Alfred University MRS chapter. The editor missed the screening so he doesn't have much more to say about the video.

Fall 1991 MRS Meeting

Three AAMU MRS Chapter members found the time and funding to attend the Fall MRS meeting in Boston the first week of December. A. Leslie Evelyn, Deon T. Williams and Eric K. Williams worked as symposium aides, dimming and brightening lights, running slide projectors, posting schedules etc. If the projector bulbs don't burn out and the slides don't get stuck it is good work. The benefits include complimentary MRS membership for one year, waiver of the registration fee and $100 for assisting four sessions. Early applicants can successfully choose the sessions they wish to work and thus get paid for going to talks which they would have attended anyhow. The only major difference between being a regular attendee and a symposium aide (aside from the feeling of enormous power being in charge of the lights and getting to wear a yellow ribbon) is that a symposium aide cannot leave if a talk gets boring or uninteresting. Chapter members are eligible for a share of the $500/yr in travel money if they attend the Spring or Fall MRS meeting. Members who present papers get first dibs on the money. The deadline for submitting abstracts for the Fall 1992 meeting in Boston is June 15.

HATS/TABES

The AAMU MRS Chapter is going to have a booth at this year's Technical and Business Exhibition and Symposium (TABES '92) sponsored by the Huntsville Association of Technical Societies, of which the AAMU MRS is a member. HATS' brochures describe TABES '92 as <169>a two-day forum highlighting the latest advancements in space, defense, and science. Featuring seminars, workshops, and eminent speakers, the event now attracts more than 6,000 participants from around the world.<170> All symposia and exhibits are free. TABES '92 is May 12 and 13 at the VBCC. The AAMU MRS will perform outreach for the MRS and publicize MRS and AAMU MRS activities.

Second North Alabama Student Materials Research Conference

This newsletter is coming out just in time for the Second NASMRC (the full name is too much for this typist/editor to type more than once). We've been busy organizing and learning how to do things better next time. Next year we shall have publicity posters up earlier than this year and the posters will have the conference date on them. At this writing we have received abstracts from students at UAH, UAB and Auburn. We have three invited speakers this year: Cardinal Warde from MIT, Jeff Sanders from IITRI and Steve Withrow from ORNL. We are looking forward to this conference being successful this year and growing in subsequent years. We wish to thank the MRS and the Alabama Space Grant Consortium for their generous support of this conference.

Next Chapter Meeting!

Upcoming Possible Events, Maybe

Certain members of the AAMU MRS have discussed the possibility of having a Chapter picnic sometime this Spring and/or visiting Disc Manufacturing Inc to see how compact disks are made. A Chapter meeting has been scheduled for 1:00 p.m. on Friday, 17 April 1992 in the Physics Department Library (Chambers 137) to discuss the possibility of the eventuality of the aforementioned Potential Event Activities(POAs) and also because we haven't had a meeting in a while. So, be sure to come to school on Friday, don't stay out too long at lunch and come to the meeting and propose some POAs of your own.

Chapter Advisor Appointed to Committees

Becomes Potential Bigwig

Our AAMU MRS Chapter Advisor, Daryush Ila, recently took over as chairman of the MRS membership committee, became a member of the MRS Academic Affairs committee and the publication committee of the Journal of Materials Research. Those of you who have let your MRS membership lapse may have heard from him already asking you to renew: Please do so as a happy Chapter Advisor makes for a happy Chapter.

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Crystals in Space

Triglycine sulfate crystal growth experiment on 1st Int'l Microgravity Laboratory.

Physics professor Ravindra B. Lal's triglycine sulfate (TGS) crystal growth experiments flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery in the First International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-1) from January 22-29, 1992. For eight days Discovery's crew of seven, representing three countries, explored the effects of weightlessness on both materials and certain life functions. Payload crew members Ulf Merbold, Roberta Bondar, Norm Thagard and David Hilmers trained at A&M to perform the TGS experiments in space.

The NASA Office of Space Sciences and Applications and space agencies around the world ran IML-1 as the first in a series of cooperative International Microgravity Laboratories. More than 220 scientists from the U.S., Canada and 12 other nations contributed to the experiments of the IML-1 flight.

Professor Lal's experiments involved the growth of TGS crystals from aqueous solution. TGS crystals have technological importance for room temperature infrared detectors, earth exploration, radiation monitoring and astronomical telescopes. In the first experiment time exposure holograms of tracer particles recorded the fluid motion due to g-jitter (variation of g) caused by crew activities, shuttle maneuvers, crystal growth and attitude control rocket firings. Hardware problems scuttled the second experiment, which was to grow crystals without the tracer particles. A short circuit almost ruined the first. The dedication of the onboard crew, the science team, NASA engineers and the Teledyn Brown engineering support staff rescued the first experiment from dismal failure. Professor Lal feels that "the crystal growth project finally paid off". He and his collaborators are analyzing the data captured on holographic films and videos recorded in space. This data should yield information about fluid motion, including testing the theory on inertial random walk, a novel type of diffusion predicted by Russian scientists but never yet observed.

Brookhaven National Laboratory's X-ray synchrotron radiation imaging of the TGS crystal indicates a high degree of crystalline perfection. Part of the flight crystal is now at EDO Corporation--Barnes Engineering Division, Shelton, CT for fabrication of infrared detectors. These detectors will be compared with detectors fabricated from earth grown crystals.

Co-investigators for the project are Ashok Batra of AAMU, Williams Wilcox of Clarkson Univeristy and James Trolinger of MetroLaser. Manmohan Aggarwal of AAMU also contributed to the experiment. Thanks to the dedication and sincere efforts of many individuals from NASA, Teledyne Brown Engineering and our own science team, and despite some hardware problems the project is a partial success.

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Future of Materials Science at Alabama A&M

by John Caulfield, University Eminent Scholar

It is with some trepidation that I, as a newcomer to this university, venture an opinion on a field already so well established here. Nevertheless, caution alone does not dissuade me from offering my view of what AAMU can and will become.

Historically black universities have a special role to play in American higher education. In my opinion, such roles can not be accepted lightly. Accordingly, we will aim to be the best university in America in terms of the quality and quantity of black physical scientists we produce. As one step toward that, we expect to hire a number of highly qualified materials scientists this year. Imagine we had our choice. Who would you hire? Chances are we are already pursuing him/her. On the other hand, please make some suggestions. Our students need established stars with whom to interact. These will be hired soon.

The technical program must build on the good collection of people and equipment already here. The changes you can expect to see from the current are more projects involving students, more real science in the research and more coordination among individual researchers. These are all things they all want to do. We are now taking positive steps to facilitate them. We can expect to see significant new space and new equipment in addition to the new faces.

Finally, we can already see an increased world wide attention to our work. Unfortunately, even the best work is essentially useless unless it is recognized. Alabama A&M is already becoming one the most talked about universities in optical materials growth and use. More than ever, what we do will count.

These are exciting times in an exciting place.