In his doctoral thesis “Characterization of Al-Mg-Si Alloys for Automotive Safety Parts”, Dr. Österreicher studied quantitative scanning electron microscopy of nanoscale particles distributed in solid media. Such particle-matrix systems are relevant in materials science, biology, and many other scientific disciplines. Dr. Österreicher introduced a method to reconstruct the three-dimensional size distribution of such particles from backscattered electron images. In addition, he developed a new preparation method for aluminium alloys, which greatly improves the contrast of Mg-Si precipitates and thus significantly increases the achievable resolution.
The work was carried out from 2014 to 2018 as part of the FFG project AMOREE (No. 843537) at AIT and the University of Salzburg in close cooperation with the industrial partner Hammerer Aluminium Industries (HAI).
Dr. Österreicher presented his work at the invitation of the ISSIA on 29 May 2019 at the 15th International Congress for Stereology and Image Analysis in Aarhus, Denmark, and accepted the award.
The entire research team is delighted and proud of this success!