About Hillert Laboratory

”If one had a great calculating machine, one might apply it to the problem of solving the Schrödinger equation for each metal and obtain thereby the interesting physical quantities, such as the cohesive energy, the lattice constant, and similar parameters. It is not clear, however, that a great deal would be gained by this. It would be preferable instead to have a vivid picture of the behavior and an understanding of the origins of variation in properties from metal to metal.”

(Wigner&Seitz, Solid State Phys. 1, 97 (1955).)

Research and education at the department of Materials Science is based on materials modeling, including modeling of processes, structures and properties. Together with the experimental facilities available at the department, our modeling activities try to find answers to the burning questions related to structural and functional materials in general, energy relevant materials and a large set of high-technology engineering materials.

Modeling is performed with mathematical tools mainly in the form of scientific computer programs. A number of first-class computational tools have been created and developed within our department. We maintain these tools and provide necessary support to internal and external users. We also master a large number of scientific computational programs developed at our partner institutes.

The target groups include master and doctoral students, members of the department, colleagues from KTH and other Swedish universities, industrial researchers and stakeholders, as well as colleagues from the rest of the world.

The secondary aim of Hillert Modeling Laboratory is to organize and host regular tutorials where interested scholars, both internal and external, can learn about the tools, their scope and limitations. The laboratory also organizes seminars focusing on tool development and key applications.