• Professor, Physics
• Professor of metallurgy and materials science, Mechanical, Aerospace, and Structural Engineering
• Faculty fellow, McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
• Professor, Center for Materials Innovation

• Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Harvard University
• S.M. in Applied Physics at Harvard University
• Master's Degree in Physics at University of Tennessee
• B.S. in Mathematics at Arkansas Tech University

News Stories & Tip Sheets:

Showing 1 Stories.

Atomic shuffle 50-year-old hypothesis validated as experiments show how liquid metals resist turning solid July 1, 2003 -- Using the Electrostatic Levitator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis led a research team that validated a 50-year-old hypothesis explaining how liquid metals resist turning into solids. The research, led by Ken Kelton, Ph.D., a professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, is featured in the July 2003 issue of Physics Today and includes an image on the magazine's cover of a solid drop of metal suspended inside the levitator. The NASA-funded research challenges theories about how crystals form by a process called nucleation, important in everything from materials to biological systems.

Showing 1 Stories.

He is a member of several professional societies, including the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society, and the American Ceramic Society. He has organized several conferences in his research area and is currently serving on the editorial advisory board and is the U.S. Regional Editor of the Journal of Non-Crystalline Solid. He has 179 publications, including refereed articles, book reviews and review articles. He is currently working on a book on nucleation.

Kelton's current research interests center on phase microstructure development and stability. Studies of titanium-based quasicrystals, novel phases with forbidden crystallographic symmetries, and related intermetallic, crystalline phases and glasses, are his main fields of interest. The Ti-based quasicrystals were recently identified by this research group as potentially important new materials for hydrogen storage and battery applications.

Experimental and numerical studies of steady-state and time-dependent nucleation constitute the second primary field of study. Nucleation rates are measured in silicate and metallic glasses, and by in under-cooled metallic liquids using containerless processing techniques, such as the novel electrostatic levitation method (ESL). Studies are being made as a function of thermal history and sample composition. This work has been recently extended to the study of oxygen precipitation in single crystal silicon.

NASA has selected an experimental program led by Kelton for future flight on the International Space Station (ISS). The experiment, QUASI, is designed in part to settle a half-century old question regarding nucleation in metallic liquids, i.e. the first step in the formation of the solid phase.

It will focus on the role of the local structure and chemical composition of the liquid in the nucleation process, requiring a quiescent liquid that is possible only in the microgravity environment of the ISS. A new model for nucleation when long-range diffusion is competitive with interfacial processes, developed recently by Kelton, will be tested. This new model for nucleation may be important for developing techniques for microstructural refinement under microgravity conditions, important for planned materials processing in space.

Kelton received his B.S. in mathematics in 1976 from Arkansas Tech University, graduating magna cum laude, and his master's in physics in 1978 from the University of Tennessee; his thesis was titled "Kinetic Properties of Thin Film Solid Solution Gold (Calcium) Alloys Prepared by Simultaneous Vapor Deposition." In 1980, he received his S.M. in applied physics at Harvard University and in 1983 his Ph.D. in applied physics also from Harvard University. His doctoral thesis was titled "Electrical Resistivity Measurements of Structural Relaxation and Crystallization and Transient Nucleation in Amorphous Metals."

From 1983 to the present, Kelton has served as: a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Applied Sciences at Harvard University, Assistant Professor of Physics at Washington University, Associate Professor of Metallurgy and Materials Science at Washington University, Associate Professor of Physics at Washington University, Adjunct Senior Investigator, Graduate Center for Materials Research at the University of Missouri at Rolla, Professor of Metallurgy and Materials Science at Washington University, Consultant MEMC Corporation, and Professor of Physics at Washington University. He has been a consultant with MEMC Corporation, St. Peters, MO; Monsanto Corp., St. Louis, MO; and ABB/Alstom, Inc., Zurich, Switzerland.

Professional History:

* Co-Organizer of the Quasicrystal Sessions of the American Physical Society Meeting in St. Louis, MO (March 20-24, 1988)

* Co-Organizer of the 4th International Conference on Quasicrystals, St. Louis, MO (May 31-June 5, 1992)

* Organizer of the Quasicrystal Sessions of the American Physical Society Meeting in Seattle, WA (March 22-26, 1993)

* Visiting Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge University, Cambridge UK (1993)

* SERC Visiting Fellow, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cambridge University, Cambridge UK (June 1993-December 1993)

* Editorial Advisory Board, Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids (1994-present)

* U.S. Regional Editor and Conference Editor, Journal of Non-Crystalline Solids (1998-present)

* Member of the Microgravity/Materials Science Council, NASA Universities Space Research Association (1999-present)

* Organizer of MRS Workshop on Quasicrystals (Nov. 2000)

* Co-Organizer of "Advances in Metallic Glasses" Symposium in the 2002 Annual TMS Meeting, Seattle, WA (Feb. 2002).

* Co-Organizer of "Nucleation Control," Royal Society Workshop, London (June, 2002).

* Overseas Visiting Scholar, St. Johns' College, Cambridge University (January-March, 2003)

* Invited Visiting Professor, Universit de Cergy-Pointoise, France (April, 2003)