Peter Hadley heads the Institute of Solid State Physics and the Field of Expertise Advanced Materials Science at Graz University of Technology.
By Birgit Baustädter - Peter Hadley tries to understand which defects give rise to which properties in certain materials - what makes a ruby red, electricity flow through silicon, or a wire break?. News+Stories: You primarily work with defects. What are they and why are they so important?. Peter Hadley: In materials science it is often the case that the properties of materials are largely determined by the defects in them. Take aluminium oxide: in its pure form it is a transparent mineral called corundum. This is a crystal consisting of a repeating pattern of aluminium and oxygen atoms. It is a very hard material that is often used in sandpaper.
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