Enhancing Strain Transfer in Multiferroics through Pure Phase Functional Gradients

该奖项的研究目标是研究通过使用纳米线产生的功能梯度的结构和性质关系。使用纳米线创建功能梯度是一种尚未被探索的新方法，但可以在保持每一相的组成的同时提供显著改善的性能。功能梯度通常是通过在界面上混合陶瓷或前驱体材料而产生的，这种梯度很难控制，而且由于两相的扩散导致成分变化，可能导致性能变差。这一问题在电陶瓷中是主要关注的问题，因为电陶瓷的性能与陶瓷的纯度密切相关。虽然这项研究将寻求识别跨越纳米线界面的应变传递的基本性质，但我们的努力将集中在将梯度界面应用于多铁材料上。我们的目标将是产生最高程度的多铁耦合，同时开发一种新的方法来创建功能梯度，以保持材料在界面上的物相和连通性，并产生对所创建的应变梯度的直接测量，以便可以为纳米级界面开发建模工具。这些努力将直接应用于不断增长的多铁材料领域，并将重点放在多铁材料应用的基本挑战和应用挑战上，从而为未来更有效地设计ME器件提供广泛的研究努力。建议的技术可应用于广泛的应用，涉及不同材料之间的界面，包括热界面、半导体和复合材料，以及许多产生积极社会影响的新兴技术。除了增加对跨越功能梯度的力学的理解外，这项研究

The research objective of this award is to study the structure property relationships of functionalgradients created through the use of nanowires. The use of nanowires to create a functionalgradient is a novel approach that has not been explored, yet could provide significantly improvedperformance while maintaining the composition of each phase. A functional gradient is oftencreated through the blending of ceramic or precursor materials at the interface which is difficultto control and can lead to inferior properties due to compositional changes resulting fromdiffusion of the two phases. This issue is of principle concern in electroceramics where theproperties are strongly related to the purity of the ceramic. While the research will seek toidentify the fundamental properties of strain transfer across a nanowire interface, our efforts willbe focused by the application of the graded interface to multiferroic materials. The goal will be toproduce the highest degree of multiferroic coupling while developing a new methodology forcreating functional gradients that maintain the material's phase and connectivity across theinterface as well as producing direct measurement of the strain gradient created such thatmodeling tools can be developed for the nanoscale interface.The broader impacts of this this award will provide a new methodology to create a nanoscalefunctional gradient across an interface. The efforts will be directly applied to the growing field ofmultiferroic materials and will focus on both basic and applied challenges to the application ofmultiferroic materials and thus offers potential for a wide range of future research effortsapproaching more efficient design of ME devices. The proposed techniques could be applied to awide range of application that involve an interface between dissimilar materials including thermalinterfaces, semiconductors and composites as well as many emerging technologies that providepositive societal impact. Beyond providing an increased understanding of the mechanics across afunctional gradient, the resear