In late 1970s and during 1980s, scientific research on the development of voids and inert gas bubbles in solids – often caused by activation and transmutation of some elements within the context of nuclear materials – was intense and most of the consolidated knowledge on this field is due professors Tom van Den, John H. Evans and Stephen E. Donnelly, depicted here in a 1989-ish photo at the Hoover Dam (USA) during a TMS meeting in Las Vegas (NV).
Professors Donnelly and Evans also edited a very important NATO-series book which documents the development on this field and still nowadays, it remains a key reference literature in the field.
Professor Donnelly (a keen fan of The Beatles and the PhD supervisor of this blog writer!!!!) is currently the Dean of the School of Computing and Engineering at University of Huddersfield (UK) and has an extraordinary legacy on the formation of excellent scientists (Prof Vlad Vishnyakov, Prof Jon Hinks, Phil Edmondson, Graeme Greaves, Amy S Gandy, Matt Tunes etc) and with an impressive scientific record within Condensed Matter Physics with important contributions for science and technology of materials. Recently, Professor Donnelly has dedicated his scientific life to perform significant ion irradiation with in situ TEM in the world-class MIAMI Facilities.
Professor John Evans recently retired recently after an extraordinary career at AERE Harwell laboratories (UK) and Professor van Veen unfortunately already left us =[.
Our congratulations to these three pioneers of nuclear materials!
Materials at Extremes 