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Teaching Program

Caltech Courses, 2007-2008

Topics: Crystalline and amorphous structure, defects in crystals, thermodynamics, phase diagrams, properties of materials: mechanical, electrical, optical and magnetic

  • MS 142 - Applications of Diffraction Techniques in Materials Science - Spring, 2008

Topics: Experimental methods in X-ray powder diffraction, quantitative phase analysis, crystallite size measurement, lattice parameter refinement, internal stress measurement, quantification of preferred orientation (texture) in materials, Rietveld refinement, and determination of structural features from small angle scattering

Recently Offered Courses

  • MS 105c - Spring, 2007

Topics: Phase transformations in solids

Topics: Overview of quantum mechanics of atoms, molecules and solids, molecular orbitals, chemical bonding, band structures, point defects, line defects (dislocations).

  • MS 142 - Applications of Diffraction Techniques in Materials Science - Spring, 2006

    Topics: Experimental methods, quantitative phase analysis, crystallite size measurement, lattice parameter refinement, internal stress measurement, quantification of preferred orientation (texture) in materials, Rietveld refinement, and determination of structural features from small angle scattering

Stand-alone Tutorials     

  • Fuel Cells - Learn the basics of fuel cell operation, and why these devices will play a critical role in a sustainable energy future.

Here's a tutorial put together by Los Alamos National Laboratory, emphasizing Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells for automotive applications (in pdf format). You may also be interested in a pamphlet put together by the National Energy Techology Lab, emphasizing market and technology aspects of higher temperature fuel cells.

Here's a "popular press" article on our solid acid fuel cells which appeared in the Caltech publication ENGenious.

  • A.C. Impedance Spectroscopy - See how to measure grain boundary and bulk conductivity in a single experiment.
  • Structure and Symmetry - Learn the connection between abstract symmetry theory and the real structures of solids.
  • Symmetry Constraints on Material Properties - Gain an understanding of the interrelationship between crystalline symmetry and constraints on the tensor properties of materials
  • X-ray Diffraction of Crystalline Solids - Take a relaxed tour that relates structure, symmetry and X-ray diffraction.

 

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Last modified: September 30, 2007