Speaker: Dr. 
Baptiste Gault, Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung | Imperial College London
Abstract: Atom probe tomography is a burgeoning microscopy and microanalysis technique allowing for compositional mapping of solid materials with sub-nanometre resolution and sensitivity in the range of tens of parts-per-million across all elements. In this seminar, I will go back to the basics of the technique, and discuss its performance limits. I will showcase examples of applications of APT to better understand materials behaviour and help design materials. Finally, I will introduce the latest developments of the technique involving the use of cryogenic specimen preparation and transfer to broaden the field of application to e.g. liquid metals or liquid-solid interfaces.
Bio: After a PhD in physics obtained from the University of Rouen (2006) under the guidance of Prof. François Vurpillot, where I contributed to developing a new generation of pulsed-laser atom probe microscopes, I worked as a the Atom Probe Scientist at the Australian Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis at the University of Sydney from 2007-2009 and 2010-2012 (on a joint position with ANSTO). In-between, I was a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Materials, University of Oxford where I worked on the analysis of thermoelectric materials by atom probe. In 2012, I was appointed Assist. Prof. at McMaster University in Canada, but quit after 6 months. From Dec. 2012 – Dec. 2015, I interrupted my research career, and took on a position of Senior Publisher in the Materials Science group at Elsevier Ltd. in Oxford, looking after the Materials Engineering portfolio. During that time, I became an academic visitor at the Department of Materials, University of Oxford.
On 1st January 2016, I became the Group Leader for Atom Probe Tomography at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung in Düsseldorf. Since October 2018, I also hold a part-time appointment at the Department of Materials, Imperial College London, first as Reader and now as Professor of Atomic-Scale Characterisation. I received the Leibniz Prize 2020 for my work on the development of the pulsed-laser atom probe tomography and its application to a broad range of materials that facilitated the spread of the technique over the past 15 years.
In the past few years, the group at MPIE has been at the forefront of the development and application of cryo-atom probe, an effort enabled by the establishment of the Laplace project that links a cryo-plasma focused-ion beam with two CAMECA LEAP 5000. We have been working on hydrogen in metals, in part supported by a research grant by the European Research Council, on the analysis of frozen liquids and liquid-solid interfaces. Beyond these frontier applications, the group works on the analysis of a range of materials, from steel, aluminium and titanium alloys, to energy nanomaterials.
Webinar link: https://iastate.zoom.us/j/96319040650?pwd=c0lxUEFHM0o5a1ZzSHFTQzdONWdadz09
Passcode: 552108