CAREER: Structure-property Relationships Arising From Interfacial Coupling in Bi-phasic Ceramic Nanocomposites

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NON-TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION: This project focuses on a class of composites referred to as multiferroics, which combine magnetic and electrical insulators, and can enable new electronic applications including multi-phase computer memory, tunable microelectronics, and electromagnetic interference filters. Composite materials are made up of at least two distinct components with differing composition and physical properties. The constituent materials are chosen with properties that do not occur in a single component material, but are desirable in a final product. However, in order for composite materials to have enhanced properties compared with their constituent phases, the interface between the two constituents must be understood. This project is developing new methods to fabricate ceramic composite materials with controlled interfaces. These materials will allow for an entirely new way of correlating the macroscopic composite properties with interfacial properties. The specific education objectives are to employ a team-based approach to 1) introduce and expose graduate and undergraduate students to novel materials research that addresses application based needs, 2) leverage existing outreach experience to encourage and improve high school graduation rates in at-risk youth, and 3) to educate graduate and undergraduate students in a multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary environment through collaborations.TECHNICAL DETAILS: Many material properties are mutually exclusive, and are therefore unlikely to exist in single-phase materials. This property dichotomy includes strength and toughness, high electric permittivity and high magnetic permeability, and soft and hard magnetic properties. However, increasing performance in many real-world applications relies on combining these properties. Currently, most complex oxide composites, or heterostructures, are prepared in thin-film form on substrates. These substrates induce changes in the local symmetry, which alter the properties of the films. The primary goal of this project is to synthesize free-standing composite bi-phasic nanoparticles and fibers to study the effects of interfacial properties, including area and nature (e.g., epitaxy) on composite properties. By fabricating composite materials without the use of substrates the structure-property relationships that arise from coupling in these systems is being established.