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Kato Lab
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The lab creates metallic glasses and metals full of pores using its own original technologies.
AboutAbout the lab
Metals that can be shaped like glasswork.
The Kato Lab studies metallic glasses, which are attracting attention as new materials for social infrastructure, and their composites.
A metallic glass is a non-crystalline alloy in which a supercooled liquid is frozen in place by rapid or gradual cooling.
Because their atoms lack long-range order, metallic glasses show better mechanical properties, corrosion resistance, and soft magnetic properties than crystalline alloys.
The lab has also developed its own metallic-melt dealloying method, and has succeeded in making three-dimensional nanoporous structures from metals that previously could not be made nanoporous.
Key terms
- Metallic glass
- An alloy that solidified while keeping a glass-like state with no regular atomic arrangement
- Supercooled liquid
- A state in which a liquid stays liquid without solidifying even below its freezing point
- Dealloying
- A method that selectively removes only certain elements from an alloy to create a porous structure
NewsLab news
Paper on nanoporous β-SiC made by metallic-melt dealloying published in Scripta Materialia
Paper on nanoporous Mo-Ni intermetallic compounds for hydrogen evolution catalysts published in Scripta Materialia
Review article on dissimilar Fe-Mg joining in phase-separating systems published in Welding Technology (Yosetsu Gijutsu, in Japanese)
ResearchResearch themes
The lab aims to elucidate how the supercooled liquid of metallic glass becomes stable, and to understand at a fundamental level the relaxation mechanisms of structure and stress that arise from the glass structure. It is also developing nanoporous materials that could not be made before, using its original metallic-melt dealloying method.
*Illustrative imageCreating new metallic glass alloys
By understanding how the supercooled liquid becomes stable and the relaxation mechanisms of structure and stress arising from the glass structure, the lab creates new metallic glasses and their composites and clarifies their properties.
*Illustrative imageMicrofabrication using the supercooled liquid
In imprinting, a metallic glass is heated between its glass transition temperature and its crystallization temperature and pressed under load, enabling micro- and nano-scale fabrication. In joint research with the Momose Lab at the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, the lab succeeded in applying diffraction gratings made this way to X-ray and neutron Talbot interferometers.
*Illustrative imageNew nanoporous materials
Specific elements are removed from a precursor alloy in a metallic melt, and the remaining elements self-organize into a nanoporous structure. The lab has succeeded in making three-dimensional nanoporous versions of materials that could not be made porous before, such as titanium, niobium, iron alloys, silicon, and carbon.
*Illustrative imageUnderstanding how dealloying occurs
To understand how complex shapes form, the lab builds numerical analysis models. Phase-field modeling reproduces how the microstructure forms and its subsequent coarsening, and, together with structural observation in experiments, the lab approaches the essence of the phenomenon.
MembersFaculty
The Kato Lab consists of faculty members, research fellows, secretaries, and PhD and master's students.As of 2026
- ProfessorHidemi Kato
- Associate ProfessorTakeshi Wada
- Assistant ProfessorRui Yamada
- Associate ProfessorJianfeng Cheng
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Metalic Glas Vitreloy4” Björn Gojdka / CC BY 3.0 (cropped)
- Creating new metallic glass alloys: “Arc-melting” Sofia Gambaro, Giovanna Canu, Francesca Cirisano, CNR-ICMATE / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Microfabrication using the supercooled liquid: “Phase-contrast x-ray image of spider” Excillum AB, Sweden (copyright holder) / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- New nanoporous materials: “Metal foam - big porosity” Blanchet matthieu / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Understanding how dealloying occurs: “U.S. Department of Energy - Science - )” U.S. Department of Energy / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Ichitsubo Lab): “Magnesium crystals” Warut Roonguthai / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Zhu Lab): “FLiBe” ornl.gov / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (Murakami-Higashi Lab): “DSC06457 Blast Furnace 4, voestalpine Leoben-Donawitz, 2026” Aciarium / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (Saida Lab): “U.S. Department of Energy - Science - )” U.S. Department of Energy from United States / Public domain (cropped)
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