NOMATEN - blog

The Center of Excellence has now become an actual center, with 5 research groups in action. The second year of our existence has been one of quick growth in spite of the global pandemic crisis, which has affected research very much. The lack of international mobility and exchanges has so to speak been substituted with hard work in the offices and laboratories. For NOMATEN, this is a well-working recipe as the steps to build up a real research environment do depend on the individual and joint effort of our staff.

We should also acknowledge the institutional support of the National Center for Nuclear Research, hosting us as an operationally independent department. Likewise, the Teaming partners CEA (France) and VTT (Finland) have been – however virtual – supportive and encouraging external “team members”. The CoE is firmly backed by the funding of the Foundation for Polish Science and is under the umbrella of an International Scientific Committee headed by prof. Sergio Bertolucci.

At the end of the year we are happy to announce prof. Dierk Raabe from Max-Planck Institut für Eisenforschung as a special guest at our seminar! The topic of his presentation is "The Materials Science of Sustainable Metallurgy".

Tungsten is a promising candidate material for the wall of a future fusion reactor due to its low erosion yield and low hydrogen solubility. However, fusion neutron irradiation will induce radiation defects in the material which can strongly increase hydrogen retention. Therefore, it is important to study the mechanism of defect creation and its influence on hydrogen retention in tungsten.

Filip Tuomisto from University of Helsinki will give a presentation on studying high entropy alloys with positron annihilation spectroscopy, opportunities and challenges.