Thevamaran Lab

Professor Thevamaran’s laboratory focuses on advancing the fundamental knowledge of process-structure-property-function relations in structured materials and creating innovative structured materials with extreme mechanical properties. Recent advancements in material fabrication technologies allow us to control the physical properties and the geometry of constituent structural features, and their organization across different lengthscales to develop structured materials with superior bulk properties for desired applications. This new approach blurs the boundary between a material and a structure, and enables the creation of structured materials with remarkable properties that are not readily found in common materials. Successful development of such materials with superior bulk properties requires a thorough fundamental understanding of material behavior over multiple lengthscales—from nanometers to several millimeters—across different response timescales—from nanoseconds to several minutes.

We use various synthesis techniques to fabricate structured materials with optimally tailored constituent features in multiple lengthscales, and use a variety of mechanical characterization techniques to investigate their responses under different external loading conditions—from quasistatic to highly dynamic. We also use in-situ high-speed microscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy, and X-ray scattering techniques to characterize the samples’ structure and morphology as well as the different modes of deformation that occur during external loading. The key fundamental understanding developed in these studies will enable us to develop structured materials with superior specific properties for extreme applications such as protecting humans and engineering systems from impact, shock, and vibrations, and developing ultra-strong and -tough microelectromechanical systems, robots, biomedical implants, and surface coatings.