Nikolas ProvatasProfessor, Canada Research Chair in Computational Materials Science.
Researchers
Daniel CoelhoPostdoctoral Fellow. My research interests lie at the intersection of condensed matter physics and materials science and engineering.Mingwang ZhongPostdoctoral Fellow. My research develops quantitative phase-field models of alloy solidification. I am currently extending the grand-potential formalism to describe driving forces far from local equilibrium, and implementing it for the ternary Fe–Cr–Ni system with CALPHAD-derived parabolic free energies for the liquid, ferrite, and austenite phases. In parallel, I use molecular dynamics to measure solid–liquid interfacial free energy, anisotropy, and kinetic coefficients, supplying the parameters that make these predictions quantitative. Earlier work examined: (1) the absolute-stability limit, crystallographic texture evolution, grain competition, and microstructure selection in binary (AlAg, AlSi, NbTa) and refractory high-entropy (HfNbTaTiZr) alloys under the rapid solidification conditions of additive manufacturing; (2) the formation of topologically connected bicontinuous structures through liquid film migration and liquid channel coupled growth during peritectic melting of TiAg and NiSn; (3) atomistic calculations of the anisotropy of the solid-liquid interfacial free energy and kinetic coefficient; and (4) theoretic modeling of Ca waves and triggered activity in cardiac arrhythmias. Ravneet KaurResearch Assistant. My research applies the Structural Phase Field Crystal (XPFC) formalism to study the microstructure formation in additively manufactured alloys. I examine how dislocations mediate the nucleation of Si precipitates in Al-Si alloys during Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF), through large-scale three-dimensional simulations that resolve atomic-scale defects while evolving on diffusive timescales. This work is built on OpenPFC, an open-source C++/MPI framework that I have extended from pure materials to binary alloys.
Graduate students
Tristan DevauxPhD student. Co-supervised with Prof. Andrew Cumming. My research focuses on the properties and states of matter at high density inside of compact stars. I am working on creating statistical field theory - based on Phase-Field Crystal (PFC) - of the so-called “nuclear pasta” phases, which are expected to emerge at subnuclear densities in the crust of neutron stars.Sammohith NittalaI am a PhD candidate whose research aims to understand phenomena involving the interplay of topological defects and solidification morphologies during rapid solidification. An exciting example of such a phenomenon is the occurrence of spontaneous orientation gradients and sub grain boundaries during additive manufacturing. I am currently working on understanding the topology of the solid-liquid interface during solidification to understand the emergence of the defects, and how these defects contribute to the observed phenomena. I am also interested in the role of defects in spinodal decomposition and how they modify the classical scaling behaviour.TomojiMasters student. My research focuses on studying the isolated effects of dislocation on solute precipitations through Ravneet's XPFC model. I developed a Gaussian amplitude expansion of the alloy XPFC model which allows us to create initial conditions from a set of atom positions. Using this method allows us to create 3D dislocations and facilitates generating grain boundaries while maintaining periodic boundary conditions.Justin MainvilleMasters student. Quantitative phase field modelling of stress-corrosion-cracking. In recent years, the phase field method has proven itself to be a powerful and versatile method to model solidification and fractures. However, it is far from being limited to those fields and recent studies has shown that phase field is ideal to study corrosion. Utilizing recent phase field models of stress-corrosion-cracking, I will create a workflow to parameterize those models to experiments. Thus, making them suitable to reproduce experimental work, and offering an in-silico way to quantitatively study the process of stress-corrosion-cracking in various materials.Joni KaipainenPhD student co-supervised with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Aalto University. My research centres on multiscale modelling of solidification using atomistic and phase-field approaches. At the atomistic scale, I apply molecular dynamics simulations to determine solid-liquid interfacial properties, including interfacial free energies and kinetic coefficients. At the mesoscale, I develop quantitative phase-field models for alloy solidification, with particular emphasis on nonequilibrium interface kinetics, solute trapping, solute drag, and the formation of cellular, dendritic, and banded microstructures.PatriciaMaster student.
Undergradute students
Alumni and past members
Jaarli SuvirantaPhD in Spring 2025. Applied X-PFC models to rapid metal solidification, under conditions with high thermal gradients, on a large scale in 3D. Also studied interface instabilities under Coriell-Sekerka instability conditions in 2D. Helped develop and test the OpenPFC tool for scalable and efficient PFC simulations.Duncan BurnsA longtime swimmer and culinary enthusiast, mmm pool noodles...Paul JreidiniDeveloped Phase Field Crystal (PFC) models and their amplitude expansions for a variety of use cases, including: • Studying nucleation rates at the scale boundary between traditional atomic and mesoscale models • Reproducing experimentally observed orientation gradients in rapidly solidifying aluminum samples using three-phase (solid, liquid, gas) Amplitude PFC models with quantitative pure-material phase diagrams • Examining cavitation in droplets of materials that undergo anomalous expansion during solidification (e.g. water and silicon) and comparing to published experiments • Proof-of-concept work on the application of PFC methodology on various long-term topics such as martensitic transformations, multi-component amorphous materials, neutron star crust materialSalvador Valtierra RodriguezPostdoctoral researcher. Thermodynamic modeling of stainless steels.Jonathan StolleGeneral physics enthusiast with a focus on non-linear systems: B.Eng. Engineering Physics McMaster 2006, M.Sc. Physics (Atmospheric Physics) McGill 2009, Postdoctoral Fellow at North Eastern University 2013-2014 (Ca2+ transport in heart cells). 11 years experience in telematics in industry as a(n application) software developer and data analyst (mainly time-series analysis). Visits the (Montreal and Hamilton) ACSR from time-to-time.AnabelleDuring my master’s, I developed a machine learning–based alternative to computationally expensive phase-field (PF) modeling for simulating the directional solidification of metals. Specifically, I implemented a conditional diffusion model trained on PF data and capable of generating microstructures of directionally solidified austenitic stainless steel under varying processing conditions. The goal is to provide a fast and practical tool for exploring how different processing conditions affect the resulting microstructures for potential applications in real-world manufacturing.
