Awards & Highlights

Congratulations to Tatiana Akhmetshina, who just graduated with her doctoral thesis on “The design, mechanical properties and nanoscale degradation characteristics of ultra-lean bioresorbable Mg–Ca alloys.” A great milestone in biomaterials! 

Celestial orange burst that “captures a frozen moment in time, where the
collapse of the familiar gives rise to the unknown.” Heartiest
congratulations to Štefan Stanko for winning the MaP Best Image Prize at
the Materials & Processes Graduate Symposium 2024!

Our heartiest congratulations to Andrea Rich for winning the Geistlich Regeneration Poster Prize for her work on “In-vivo sensors to characterize magnesium and titanium implants” at this year’s MaP Graduate Symposium!

We present a new method of correlative 3D ptychographic X-ray computed tomography and analytical electron microscopy to quantitatively image magnesium biodegradation and mimic related in-situ conditions.

Congratulations to Viktor Wessely, who just graduated with his doctoral thesis on “Advancing aluminum alloys through tailored multiphase precipitation: a mechanistic understanding at the nanoscale.” A great work on high-strength Al alloys! 

Announcing a few recently published papers.

Another turbulent and special year will end very soon. LMPT wishes you a happy New Year 2024, with lots of joy, good health, progress to peace, and great personal and professional achievements!

Heartiest congratulations to Andrea Rich for being awarded the Best Presentation Prize for her talk on amorphous Mg-fiber reinforced bone cement at the recent Bioceramics 2023 conference in Solothurn, Switzerland!

Andrea Rich, Indranil Basu, Tatiana Akhmetshina, and the group of Leopold Berger and Jörg Löffler win various awards in 2023.

Congratulations to Alexander Firlus, who just graduated with his doctoral thesis on “The atomic-scale origins of the Invar effect in Fe-based bulk metallic glasses.” An impressive work in the area of disordered magnetic materials. Well done!

We suggest pathways to overcome the "475 °C embrittlement" in Fe-Cr alloys, which are of high importance towards the development of structural materials for future fusion reactors.

We unravel the origin of the Invar effect in Fe-based bulk metallic glasses: it occurs universally and is solely controlled by the magnetic interactions within the disordered Fe network.

Studying Pd-, Pt-, and Ti-based bulk metallic gasses, we illustrate in their superior biological response, including blood biocompatibility, enhanced osteogenesis, and antimicrobial activity.

In the recent review article, we present the challenges and research needs to understand body-fluid-assisted stress corrosion cracking and corrosion fatigue in bioresorbable zinc alloys.

The Journal of Magnesium and Alloys and the International Magnesium Society bestowed the International Magnesium Science & Technology Award, Person of the Year (2022) on Prof. Jörg F. Löffler.

Via a long-term in-vivo study, we demonstrate in a recent work the suitability of magnesium-based resorbable intramedullary nails for pediatric surgery.

Two of our publications have been highlighted in the Bulk Metallic Glass section of a themed Nature Communication collection that showcases recent work in metallic materials.

Andrea Rich, Jörg Löffler and the group of Samuel Montibeller, Leopold Berger and Jörg Löffler win various awards in 2022.

After 10 years in R&D at Volkswagen Group, our former doctoral student and postdoc David Klaumünzer has accepted a Professorship at the Department of Automotive and Aeronautical Engineering at HAW Hamburg, Germany.

In a recent Nature Communications publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology unravel via multiple length-scale analysis the Invar effect, universally observed in magnetic Fe-based glasses. On the atomic scale it strongly affects the average Fe–Fe pair distance and can even cause thermal contraction of the Fe–Fe pairs.

Andrea Rich, Mihai Stoica, and the group of Christian Wegmann, Leopold Berger and Jörg Löffler win various awards in 2021

A collaboration between researchers at the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology and Empa has shown that Pd-based metallic glass demonstrates thrombogenic resistance that is substantially higher than that of state-of-the-art Ti64. With its superior mechanical properties, the Pd-based glass is particularly interesting for blood-contacting, load-bearing medical devices. The results are presented in Advanced Functional Materials.

Prof. Jörg F. Löffler has been selected to the class of 2021 MRS Fellows for his pioneering contributions to novel metallic materials design.

In a recent ACS Nano publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology have resolved the structure of a hierarchically phase-​separated metallic glass with a small volume fraction of (nano-​)crystalline inclusions. Applying X-​ray diffraction computed nanotomography (XRD-​nCT), they achieved submicron resolution by deploying a 500 nm focused monochromatic beam at the ESRF ID11 beamline.

Martina Cihova wins various awards in 2020

A collaboration between researchers at EPF Lausanne and the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology has shown that thermal drawing of metallic glasses in a polymer matrix generates conducting fibers with arbitrary transverse geometries, micro- and nanoscale feature sizes, and extreme aspect ratios. These fibers will have unique applications in flexible electronics and neuroscience. The results are presented in Nature Nanotechnology.

In a recent Advanced Science publication, Güven Kurtuldu and Jörg F. Löffler of the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) illustrate that metastable crystals can be isolated via ultrafast calorimetry. Investigating their thermophysical properties, they find that even a simple binary Au–Si eutectic alloy reveals four distinctly different melting points.

The phenomenon of age-hardening in metals was discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century. 110 years later, a research collaboration between the Montanuniversität Leoben and the ETH Zurich Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology has revealed that this effect depends strongly on material dimensions. The results are presented in Nature Communications.

The trip to Appenzell with a visit to the Aescher Wildkirchli and the various hiking tours was a unique experience.

In a recent Advanced Materials publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) present TEM experiments designed to follow the active nano-corrosion processes of biodegradable Mg alloys over periods ranging from seconds to days. They find that cathodically polarized dealloying of intermetallic nanoprecipitates governs their electrochemical reactivity. This presents a fundamentally new concept for active materials such as Mg alloys.

In a recent Adv. Mater. publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) and Complex Materials have documented the creation of ordered porous Mg scaffolds via 3D NaCl printing (and sintering), Mg melt infiltration, and subsequent salt removal by leaching. These set the premise for a unique combination of tunable mechanical properties and the potential of being deployed as biodegradable implant, as the scaffold can be tuned to predictably biodegrade in the human body.

In a recent Nat. Comm. publication, Jörg F. Löffler from the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) and his colleague Jürgen Schawe from Mettler Toledo show that metallic glasses generally reveal multiple critical cooling rates that produce different types of monolithic glass, which the authors termed “self-doped glass” (SDG) and “chemically homogeneous glass” (CHG). The CHG reveals a tendency towards stochastic nucleation, which underlines the novelty of this glass state.

In a recent Phys. Rev. Lett. article, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) have demonstrated that magnetization switching in ferromagnetic nanoparticles is linked to the dynamics of topological point defects, which form as Skyrmion lines and break via the creation of emergent magnetic monopoles. These move at speeds exceeding those of any other magnetic object known, and thus generate unprecedented solenoidal electric fields of several megavolts per meter.

Michalis Charilaou, former doctoral student and postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship at the Department of Physics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA.

In a recent PNAS publication, researchers at the Laboratory of Metal Physics and Technology (LMPT) have demonstrated that crystal nucleation from the melt may generally occur via an intermediate nucleation of metastable quasicrystals. This transition path was observed with a newly developed method of “up-quenching”, which can yield the discovery of hidden transient phases that are key to understanding the nucleation and crystallization behavior in metallic, polymeric and biological systems.

Fabian Haag, Martina Cihova and Dr. Leopold Berger win various Young Scientist Awards at international conferences in 2017.

The members of LMPT spent two funny days in Ticino.

Jörg F. Löffler wins the DGM Prize “Breakthrough” 2016 of the German Society of Materials. This award is “bestowed on an excellent scientist in the middle of his/her research career for outstanding scientific achievements which represent a breakthrough in materials science and/or for initiating a new research field.”

Stefan Pogatscher wins one of Austria’s highest research prizes for his work on aging of aluminum alloys, which solved a long-standing problem regarding the negative effect of “natural aging” in Al6000 alloys and described the atomistic mechanism controlling this aging. These results, elaborated at the Montanuniversität Leoben and ETH Zurich, have led to significantly improved properties of AlMgSi alloys at shorter processing times on an industrial level.

This Nat. Comm. article presents experimental evidence for a solid-solid phase transition via the formation of a metastable liquid in a metallic glass system. It provides further insight into phase transition theory and may also be of great importance for the understanding of new processing techniques where rapid cooling and heating are applied (e.g. 3D printing of metals).

The 2015 LMPT Christmas Party took place at the ETH Zurich faculty restaurant. It was a special event, as on the same occasion we had to say “goodbye” to our dear group members Bernd Schönfeld and Peter Uggowitzer, who officially retired – unlike as it seemed!

Icosahedral short-range order (SRO) often dominates the structure and thus the properties of metallic glasses. This Phys. Rev. Lett. article now clarifies via MD simulations how such icosahedral SRO influences glass formation and mechanical properties.

Prof. Jörg Löffler has received the Senior Scientist Award of this year’s International Symposium on Metastable, Amorphous, and Nanostructured Materials (ISMANAM 2015, Paris).

Stefan Pogatscher, former postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship in the area of “Materials Technology of Aluminum” at the Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria.

Robert Maaß, former postdoc at LMPT, has accepted an Assistant Professorship at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

This Adv. Funct. Mater. article summarizes our research over the last decade involving in-situ analysis of shear-band dynamics during straining experiments. It discusses the various stages of shear banding together with the extended time and length scales involved, also in the more general context of disordered materials.

The German Society for Materials Science awards the Tammann Medal 2014 to Professor Peter Uggowitzer for his outstanding metallurgical work in the areas of alloy and process development of steels and light metals; in particular nitrogen steels and aluminum and magnesium alloys for the automotive industry and medical technology.

This Phys. Rev. Lett. article describes how precipitation aging can be controlled in AlMgSi alloys via a part-per-million addition of Sn solutes, and explains via thermodynamic modeling and DFT calculations that this control of aging is due to vacancy diffusion which can be tuned by the Sn solutes. This “diffusion on demand” principle has great scientific and technological ramifications.