Research Interests

Nonequilibrium processing, including rapid solidification, vapor quenching and mechanical alloying; alloying behavior and phase transformations; amorphization and nanoscale structures by mechanical attrition; high melting temperature intermetallic compounds; high transition temperature oxide superconductors.

Background and Research

Carl Koch was a research group leader with the Metals and Ceramics Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory before he joined the NCSU faculty in 1983.

Koch's research in recent years has focused on the synthesis, characterization and properties of metastable materials. Metastable materials with unique structures or microstructures that we have studied include metallic glasses, intermetallic compounds, nanocrystalline materials and polymer alloys. The chief nonequilibrium processing methods used to prepare metastable materials are rapid solidification from the liquid phase (at about 10^{6 o}C/s) and mechanical attrition of powders in high-energy ball mills. Koch was the first researcher to demonstrate that amorphous alloys metallic glasses could be made by ball milling certain elemental powder mixtures by the technique known as mechanical alloying. Recent research has turned to nanocrystalline materials prepared by either mechanical attrition or controlled crystallization of amorphous precursors formed by rapid solidification. His group's interest in these materials is due to their special mechanical and soft magnetic properties.