Nanograin BaTiO3 Ceramics for Dielectric, Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Applications

非技术描述：每年有1000万亿个新的多层陶瓷电容器进入消费、工业和军事产品市场，随着它们的尺寸缩小，它们的微观结构特征预计将在未来十年内接近纳米材料的规模。该项目将重点关注这些电容器中使用的陶瓷材料BaTiO3，以确定推动下一代持续发展所需的最重要材料参数。该项目还将为费城地区和更大社区的学生和教育工作者提供丰富的教育和研究机会。特别是，波多黎各-胡马考大学将通过互联网接入宾夕法尼亚大学实验室的一些测量仪器而受益。技术细节：该项目将研究纳米BaTiO3陶瓷在介电、铁电和压电方面的应用。通过改变纳米颗粒陶瓷的晶粒尺寸、晶界电荷和晶体稳定性，将寻求设计一种可调谐的纳米复合材料，而不会出现明显的成分不均匀性。复合效应将依赖于电荷/缺陷诱导的内部场来涂抹结构跃迁和箝位极化，从而产生具有温度无关介电响应的稳定介电材料。这种可能性在以前的传统陶瓷中是无法实现的，因为直到纳米材料的出现，空间电荷区的宽度已经远远小于晶粒尺寸。该项目将利用烧结技术的最新突破，该技术可以实现致密化而不生长晶粒，这可以利用纳米颗粒BaTiO3陶瓷。围绕实验室发现建立的综合研究和教育活动将为未来的创新和发展培养纳米电子材料领域的新学生。

NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: Every year 1,000 trillion new pieces of multilayer ceramic capacitors enter the market inside the consumer, industrial and military products, and as their sizes shrink their microstructure features are projected to approach the nanomaterial scale within the next decade. This project will focus on BaTiO3, the ceramic material used in these capacitors, to determine the most important material parameters required to propel continued advances into the next generations. The project will also provide rich educational and research opportunities to engage students and educators in the Philadelphia area and in the larger community. In particular, the University of Puerto Rico-Humacao will benefit by gaining internet access to some measurement instruments in the Penn laboratory. TECHNICAL DETAILS:This project will investigate nanograin BaTiO3 ceramics for possible dielectric, ferroelectric and piezoelectric applications. By varying the grain size, grain boundary charge and crystal stability of the nanograin ceramics, it will seek to engineer a tunable nanocomposite without apparent compositional inhomogeneity. The composite effect will rely on charge/defect-induced internal fields to smear structural transitions and clamp polarization, creating stable dielectrics with temperature-independent dielectric responses. Such possibility was not previously available in conventional ceramics because until the advent of nanomaterials, the width of the space charge zone has been much less than the grain size. The project will take advantage of a recent breakthrough in sintering technology that allows densification without grain growth, which avails nanograin BaTiO3 ceramics. Integrated research and educational activities built around laboratory discoveries will train new students in the field of nano electronic materials for future innovation and development.