Collaborative Research: Processing and Assembly of Devices with Tailored Magnetic Properties

纳米材料，即具有1-100 nm特征的材料，已经开发出具有许多独特性能的材料，并且已经开发了各种技术来以低成本大量生产这些材料。然而，到目前为止，我们还缺乏商业方法来将这些材料及其独特的性能融入到新的设备中，或者将这些功能构建到更大长度的材料中。一种特别令人兴奋的纳米材料集合是可以利用电力改变磁性的复合材料，反之亦然。这些材料可能导致新型电子设备的实现，包括新型存储器和数据存储。在这个项目中，我们寻求开发新的方法来合成和组装这些材料成为更大规模的光学器件，这些器件可以在传感器、光学集成电路以及数据传输和存储中得到应用。重要的是，这项工作包括测量和验证这些材料在集成到制造的设备中后是否具有设计性能的研究。这种质量控制，特别是制造过程中的监控，对于这些材料的商业化至关重要。该项目结合了佛罗里达大学的材料科学家和南卡罗来纳大学的物理学家的努力，为学生研究人员提供了一个独特的跨学科研究环境，不仅对发现具有多种传统科学学科性质的材料至关重要，而且对未来的社会利益也至关重要。该项目研究由多铁复合材料建造的设备的合成和组装，即在同一阶段表现出至少两种，有时是三种类型的铁性有序化的材料。在这个项目中，活动集中在结合了压电和磁致伸缩材料的两相纤维上。这些多铁性材料的优点系数是磁电系数，它测量当多铁性材料置于外加磁场中时产生的电场的大小。利用磁退火和磁场定向自组装，研究工作将开发具有增强磁电系数的材料，并将它们组装成新型光学设备。同时，将实施新的工艺计量学来表征纤维的特性和由它们建造的装置。这些测量将确定系统学并量化材料中的磁电耦合，这些材料不适用于更成熟的表征方法。

Nanomaterials, materials with features ranging from 1-100 nm, have been developed with many unique properties, and a variety of techniques have been developed to produce these materials in large volumes at low cost. However to date, we lack commercial methods to incorporate these materials and their unique properties into novel devices, or to build these functions into materials over larger length scales. One particularly exciting collection of nanomaterials are composites that can use electricity to change magnetic properties and vice-versa. These materials could lead to the realization of new types of electronic devices, including new types of memory and data storage. In this project we seek to develop novel methods for synthesizing and assembling these materials into larger-scale optical devices that could find application in sensors, optical integrated circuits, and in data transmission and storage. Importantly, this effort includes research to measure and verify that these materials behave as designed once integrated into a manufactured device. Such quality control, especially monitoring during manufacturing, is critical to enable commercialization of these materials. This project combines the efforts of materials scientists at the University of Florida and physicists at the University of South Carolina to provide a unique interdisciplinary research environment for student researchers, critical for not only discovery but for future societal benefit for materials with properties that span multiple traditional scientific disciplines.This project addresses synthesis and assembly of devices built from multiferroic composite materials, i.e. materials that exhibit at least two, and sometimes three types of ferroic ordering in the same phase. In this project, activities center on biphasic fibers that combine a piezoelectric and a magnetostrictive material. The figure of merit for these multiferroics is the magnetoelectric coefficient, which measures the magnitude of the electric field generated when the multiferroic material is placed in an applied magnetic field. Using magnetic annealing and magnetic-field-directed self-assembly, research efforts will develop materials with enhanced magnetoelectric coefficients and assemble them into novel optical devices. In parallel, novel process metrologies will be implemented to characterize the properties of the fibers and devices built from them. These measurements will identify systematics and quantify magnetoelectric coupling in materials that are not amenable to more established characterization methodologies.