Hillert, Mats

Lipson (1943, 1944), who had examined a copper-nickeMron ternary alloy. A few years ago, on an occasion in honour of Mats Hillert, Cahn (1991) mapped out in masterly fashion the history of the spinodal concept and its establishment as a widespread alternative mechanism to classical nucleation in phase transformations, specially of the solid-solid variety. An excellent, up-to-date account of the present status of the theory of spinodal decomposition and its relation to experiment and to other branches of physics is by Binder (1991). The Hillert/Cahn/Hilliard theory has also proved particularly useful to modern polymer physicists concerned with structure control in polymer blends, since that theory was first applied to these materials in 1979 (see outline by Kyu 1993). 

In parallel to Kaufman and co-workers in the USA, work was taking place in Sweden stemming from the appointment of Mats Hillert to the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1961. Kaufman and Hillert studied together at MIT and Hillert was very keen to make the use of thermodynamic calculations a key... 

Mats H. Hillert (b. 1924) and Lawrence (Larry) Kaufman (b. 1931) studied together at M. I. T. Kaufman (right photo) received his D.Sc. in physical metallurgy in 1955, and Hillert (left photo) his D.Sc. in 1956. Hillert became a research associate with the Swedish Institute of Metals Research in 1948. In 1961, he was appointed professor of physical metallurgy at the Royal Institute... 

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