Dr Rob Thompson
Degrees and Honours:
- BA (Cantab) 2009-2012
- MSci (Cantab) 2012-2013
- PhD (Cantab) 2013-2017
Biography
I was at Pembroke College from 2009 to 2012 for an undergraduate Natural Sciences degree specialising in Materials Science. My PhD was with Professor Bill Clegg working on crystal defects, their nature and behaviour. I finished that this year and have now taken on the role of Teaching Fellow at the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy.
Research Interests
Crystal defects - This is an interesting field because it is the behaviour of defects in materials that determine the properties. It is the nature of the defects rather than the inherent nature of chemical bonding, that creates the vast differences across diverse materials from copper to diamond. In particular more complex crystal structures, with atomic scale heterogeneity, can give rise to unexpected behaviours; for example the MAX phases which are ceramics stable to over 3500°C but none the less flow as easily as aluminium. I am also interested in the application of computing to materials science, particularly the use on inverse finite element modelling to extract materials properties from instrumented indentation data.