Lawrence Whitmore

Dr. Whitmore graduated from the University of Surrey in 1990 with a B.Sc. in Pure Physics and in 1994 with a Ph.D. studying microstructural defects in high precision grinding of silicon wafers. After this he made a Postdoc at the University of Cambridge, Department of Materials Science, to develop an automated micro-hardness tester and software for data acquisition and analysis. He then worked for Mitsubishi as an R&D engineer developing the manufacturing process for silicon wafers; world economic problems causing the plant to close down a few year later. 

In 2007 he was hired by USTEM in Vienna as an electron microscopist specialising in transmission electron microscopy, and then in 2010 by Montan University Leoben where he worked in a Christian Doppler laboratory using TEM to explore the relationship between microstructure and bulk properties in nickel alloys, in particular the effect of precipitate size and concentration on tensile strength and hardness. 

After this he worked In Iasi to help the National Institute of Physics set up a microscopy lab with a newly purchased Zeiss Libra TEM (with monochromator and objective lens spherical aberration correction); and then in 2016 he started working at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg on the Intereg project n2m investigating magnesium alloys using TEM with partners in the University of Applied Sciences, Landshut. 

The collaboration with Landshut evolved into a new FWF-DFG Dach project, which started in 2021, to deepen the understanding of magnesium by using TEM in combination with an in-situ compression stage to examine twinning and microcracks as a result of bulk plastic strain. This project is still ongoing and more information is available here DMA.