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Understanding where and how phase transitions occur is critical to developing new generations of the materials used in high-performance batteries, sensors, energy-harvesting devices, medical diagnostic equipment and other applications. But until now there was no good way to study and simultaneously map these phenomena at the relevant length scales.
Now, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a new nondestructive technique for investigating these material changes by examining the acoustic response at the nanoscale. Information obtained from this technique--which uses electrically-conductive atomic force microscope probes-–could guide efforts to design materials with enhanced properties at small size scales.Image credit: Rama Vasudevan, ORNL
