Seminar bY pROFESSOR Laurence D. Marks

It is a great pleasure to host Prof. Laurance Marks from Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University (USA) for the MMRG Seminar held on Thursday, October 23rd, at 3:00 pm in JWS 427a.
Seminar Title: Is Triboelectricity Confusing, Confused or Complex?
Description: This talk looks at the fundamental physics of triboelectricity: charge transfer due to
contact and sliding. It explores the history of the topic, the established thinking on triboelectrification as well as more recent developments. In particular, it explores a series of papers that Prof Marks and co-workers have published since 2019 suggesting flexoelectricity as a key driver of triboelectrification. The talk explores how this works, the phenomenon it can explain and the experimental data (recent and not so recent) pointing to the role of flexoelectricity. The talk also explores moves towards a unified view of triboelectricity and the many factors that can be involved. 
About the Speaker: Laurence D. Marks is Emeritus Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University (USA). He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge working under the supervision of Archie Howie FRS. Starting from his PhD work, he studied nanotwinning, leading toward a way to directly image the atomic scale of nano-surfaces. One of his early research efforts led to the discovery of a type of nanoparticle now known as the Marks decahedron. His research interests are diverse, including anything and everything associated with transmission electron microscopy, but beyond this extending to nanoparticle structure, oxide surface science, nanotribology, and fixed-point optimization methods for DFT. In recent years, he has done quite a lot of work probing the fundamental physics of triboelectrification and has proposed that flexoelectric behaviour at surface asperities may be a key (previously unnoticed) driver.
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