About Our Focus Areas

Carbides and Cermets:

Manufacturing, testing and characterisation of mainly WC, VC, CrC and TiC sintered alloys and coatings.

Carbon Nanotubes and Strong Composites:

Shaped Carbon Nanomaterials (including carbon nanotubes, nanofibers, nanospheres - among the strongest and stiffest structures ever made) are being studied for their potential chemical and mechanical applications.

Ceramic Materials:

Multi-component, hard ceramic materials suitable for cutting and drilling applications, as well as materials suitable for robust energy storing and generating structures.

Diamond, Thin Hard Films and Related Materials:

Diamond has applications in many fields that place it in a class of its own as a strong material. Developments and studies using diamond include radiation dosimetry, radiation damage effects and semiconductor application. Laser-based techniques and electron microscopy is used to measure stresses, elastic and structural properties of thin hard films (TiC, TiN etc) deposited by laser ablation and magnetron sputtering.

New Ultrahard Materials:

Computational and experimental investigations of potentially new ultrahard materials including advanced borides, carbides, nitrides and oxides.

Strong Metallic Alloys:

Development of new alloys, property studies of metals, structure-property relationships and phase diagrams. Alloys include: superalloys, steels, specialty alloys and titanium.