107175/0509 Department of Materials Science and Engineering 2008 Annual Report NTNU The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim represents academic eminence in technology and the natural sciences as well as in other academic disciplines ranging from the social sciences, the Annual Report 2008 arts, medicine, architecture to fine arts. Cross-disciplinary cooperation results in ideas no one else has thought of, and creative solutions that change our daily lives. Department of Materials Science and Engineering Norwegian University of Science and Technology NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway www.ntnu.no NOTES Table of Contents Editorial ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Science stories ...................................................................................................................................................................... 5 Publications in international peer review journals, books and patents ....... 15 Conference proceedings, other reports and publications .............................................. 19 Equipment ................................................................................................................................................................................... 21 Chemistry Building II (KII)-Seminars, Energy and Materials ..................................... 24 Guest lecturers ...................................................................................................................................................................... 26 Staff ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 27 Graduate studies ................................................................................................................................................................. 31 Dr.ing/PhD projects in progress ...................................................................................................................... 33 Dr.ing/PhD projects co-supervised in other departments ............................................ 36 Course program ................................................................................................................................................................... 37 M.Sc. students ........................................................................................................................................................................ 39 Graduated M.Sc. students with titles of their diploma works ................................... 41 Extracurricular activities .......................................................................................................................................... 44 Picture on front page: Per Martin Rørvik. Photo: Lead titanate nanorods grown on strontium titanate substrates. Annual report for Department of Materials Science and Engineering Norwegian University of Science and Technology NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway Internet address: http://www.ntnu.no/materialteknologi The editor thanks ✔ Brit Wenche Meland, Hilde Martinsen Nordø, Hege Knutsdatter Johnsen and Åse Lill Salomonsen for collecting the administrative data and taking care of the process of printing the report. ✔ Skipnes kommunikasjon for printing. FROM THE EDITORS 2008 have been an important year for recruitment of paid off in recent years and particularly last year. The new faculty members. Four new faculty members have Norwegian Research Centre for Solar Cell Technology joined the Department to strengthen our education and was awarded to the four research institutions research in silicon production including feedstock for IFE, NTNU, SINTEF and UiO in February 2009. Our solar grade silicon, refining and recycling of metals, scientists in this field are key partners in this Centre high temperature corrosion and surface science and with an annual budget of 40 MNOK. Several other finally nano-materials. In addition a professorship projects have also been granted, many of them are in physical metallurgy was advertised last year and in collaboration with SINTEF and industrial partners. the top candidate was just recently hired. Finally, a Finally, basic science has also been strengthened, professor in solar cell materials, expected to be hired particularly by the grant for a Strategic University during 2009, will complete our effort to strengthen Program (SUP), and two projects supported by the our academic staff. The new staff will strengthen our FRINAT and FRITEK programs. We acknowledge study programs and research activities in NTNUs the financial support from The Research Council of strategic areas materials, nanotechnology and energy Norway and our industrial partners. technology. We are much exited to see the influence of these young and talented new faculty members in the The strong growth in solar cell research has also years to come. paved the way for addressing the need for a new research infrastructure and state of the art labora- Four of the new faculty members are women, which tories. Our vision of a new building “Solbygg” are bring the fraction of women in academic positions at becoming closer to realization day by day. The financial the Department a significant step in the right direction. crises has given new challenges with respect to indu- The low fraction of female academic staff members strial support for the infrastructure, while on the in natural science and technology is one of the other hand we hope that this turns in favour of funding important challenges in academia. Our new talented from the government. We believe that during the next female scientists are important role models for all coming months the funding for our new infrastructure the excellent female students in our study programs will be in place. and we believe that this will motivate a higher fraction of our female master students to continue with a PhD Hydro Aluminium has been one of our key industrial study and to further qualify for an academic position in partners in the past and is certainly an important the future. partner also in the future. Both Hydro Aluminium and NTNU were concerned with the declining research and The annual number of publications in peer reviewed education activity related to aluminium in recent years. international journals continued to increase in 2008. Hydro Aluminium is strongly supporting our effort This is one of the most important strategic objectives to strengthen our aluminium activities and has given at NTNU and we are contributing strongly to achieve financial support to hire two new faculty members, this objective. The “working horse” in the research is one in physical metallurgy as described above and one the PhD students, the post docs and scientists at the in aluminium electrolysis technology. Unfortunately, department. We appreciate the long hours they spend we have not been able to identify candidates for the at the laboratories and the hard work they carry out. second position. However, instead we will strengthen The number of PhD awarded in 2008 was 10, which is the research on primary aluminium production by lower than expected, which calls for new efforts to hiring an adjunct professor and recruiting a young help the PhD students to finalise their theses in time. and talented scientist, with the intention to qualify for an academic position. We are very pleased with 2008 has also been a very successful year with the support from Hydro Aluminium and their efforts respect to new research projects. Our early initiatives to strengthen the unique research triangle between to establish silicon solar cell research in Norway have Hydro, SINTEF and NTNU. The Research Council of 3 FROM THE EDITORS Norway has during 2009 carried out an evaluation of will continue their studies with a PhD degree which research in chemistry in Norway. The electrochemistry will balance the fraction of foreign and domestic PhD and inorganic chemistry groups have been evaluated students at the department. and both research groups received relatively good scores and were recognized for their healthy research The annual report has the same outline as we have culture. Several recommendations for improvements used the last six years. The first part comprises short are suggested by the expert panel, particularly with reports giving an impression of the current research respect to strengthen basic science and, improve the conducted in the four research groups, the annual list publication rate, particularly in high impact journals. of publications and conference proceedings and the The implementation of the recommendations will be laboratory infrastructure. The first part is intended to initiated in near future. give external readers an impression of the research being performed. The second part, which comprises Excellent student recruitment to our student an overview of the staff, master students and PhD programs has continued in 2008. Our study program students, last years Masters and PhD candidates and in materials technology was recognized among the their thesis’ titles and finally extracurricular activities, students at NTNU to be the best master program in is presenting a comprehensive overview of the annual technology. We believe this does not come by itself, activity and is more intended for the