Science Journey: "Defects in Crystals: The Tiniest Engineering Tool"

Rebecca Gallivan, PhD Student in Material Science, Caltech Division of Engineering & Applied Science

Why can you bend a metal without breaking it, but not a ceramic plate? Why are rubies red and sapphires blue? What enables LEDs to work? The answer is defects! Usually we think about defects as undesirable flaws and things we need to engineer our way around, but this is not always the case. At the nano-scale, defects become one of the most powerful tools for engineering material behavior. Rebecca Gallivan will explore how these atomic-level defects give rise to macroscopic properties and why they are critical for pushing the boundaries of science and technology.