Latest Ferroelectric materials Stories
Like turning coal to diamond, adding pressure to an electrical material enhances its properties. Now, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researchers have devised a method of making ferroelectric thin films with twice the strain, resulting in exceptional performance. Led by Lane Martin, a professor of materials science and engineering, the group published its results in the journal Advanced Materials. Ferroelectric materials, metal oxides with special polarization properties, are...
At the heart of computing are tiny crystals that transmit and store digital information’s ones and zeroes. Today these are hard and brittle materials. But cheap, flexible, nontoxic organic molecules may play a role in the future of hardware. A team led by the University of Washington in Seattle and the Southeast University in China discovered a molecule that shows promise as an organic alternative to today’s silicon-based semiconductors. The findings, published this week in the journal...
Electron microscopy, conducted as part of the Shared Research Equipment (ShaRE) User Program at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has led to a new theory to explain intriguing properties in a material with potential applications in capacitors and actuators. A research team led by ORNL's Albina Borisevich examined thin films of bismuth samarium ferrite, known as BSFO, which exhibits unusual physical properties near its transition from one phase to another. BSFO holds...
HZB scientists observe how a material at room temperature exhibits a unique property – a 'multiferroic' material with potential uses for cheap and quick data storage. Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in close collaboration with colleagues in France and UK, have engineered a material that exhibits a rare and versatile trait in magnetism at room temperature. It’s called a “multiferroic,” and it means that the material has properties allowing it to be both electrically...
The change-over to lead-free products is in full progress. The problem is however that the environmentally friendly alternatives have to be as effi cient as the lead-containing variants. One example is the injection system of diesel engines. Lead-free functional materials can be found faster by means of computer simulation methods.Technical progress in the automobile industry is unbroken. But, the sector has still some hard nuts to crack: "Lead-free materials" is one of the challenges "“...
Research published today by materials engineers from the University of Leeds could help pave the way towards 100% lead-free electronics.The work, carried out at the UK's synchrotron facility, Diamond Light Source, reveals the potential of a new manmade material to replace lead-based ceramics in countless electronic devices, ranging from inkjet printers and digital cameras to hospital ultrasound scanners and diesel fuel injectors.European regulations now bar the use of most lead-containing...
Piezoelectric materials have fantastic properties: squeeze them and they generate an electrical field. And vice-versa, they contract or expand when jolted with an electrical pulse. With a name derived from the Greek word meaning to squeeze or press, the piezoelectric effect was just a curiosity after it was discovered in several crystals in 1880. But in 1917, a quartz piezoelectric crystal was at the heart of the world's first submarine-detecting sonar.Piezoelectric materials really took off...
Power-generating rubber films developed by Princeton University engineers could harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking to power pacemakers, mobile phones and other electronic devices.The material, composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded onto silicone rubber sheets, generates electricity when flexed and is highly efficient at converting mechanical energy to electrical energy. Shoes made of the material may one day harvest the pounding of walking and running to power...
NEW YORK, Dec. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue: Non-Linear Optical Materials And Applications - An International Market Report http://www.reportlinker.com/p0164560/Non-Linear-Optical-Materials-And-Applications---An-International-Market-Report.html Materials with highly nonlinear optical (NLO) characteristics are currently of great technological and scientific interest for diverse applications. Currently, there...
There is good news for the global effort to reduce the amount of lead in the environment and for the growing array of technologies that rely upon the piezoelectric effect. A lead-free alternative to the current crop of piezoelectric materials has been identified by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC), Berkeley.The key to this success is the use of bismuth ferrite, a compound with a...
