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创建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探索的新方法，但可以在保持每个相组成的同时显着提高性能。功能梯度通常是通过陶瓷或前驱体材料在界面处的混合而产生的，这种梯度很难控制，并且由于两相扩散导致的成分变化而导致性能较差。这个问题在电陶瓷中是一个重要的问题，因为电陶瓷的性能与陶瓷的纯度密切相关。虽然研究将寻求确定在纳米线界面上应变传递的基本特性，但我们的努力将集中在梯度界面在多铁材料中的应用上。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，以保持材料的相位和跨界面的连通性，以及产生直接测量创建的应变梯度，从而可以为纳米级界面开发建模工具。该奖项的广泛影响将提供一种新的方法来创建跨界面的纳米级功能梯度。这些努力将直接应用于不断发展的多铁性材料领域，并将重点关注多铁性材料应用的基础和应用挑战，从而为未来广泛的研究工作提供潜力，以接近更有效的ME器件设计。所提出的技术可以应用于广泛的应用，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提供积极社会影响的新兴技术。除了提供对跨功能梯度的机制的更多理解之外，该研究

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