Latest Ferroelectricity Stories
High sugar levels in the body come at a cost to health. New research suggests that more sugar in the body could damage the elastic proteins that help us breathe and pump blood. The findings could have health implications for diabetics, who have high blood-glucose levels. Researchers at the University of Washington and Boston University have discovered that a certain type of protein found in organs that repeatedly stretch and retract – such as the heart and lungs – is the source for a...
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...
A new organic 'ferroelectric,' economical and with low environmental impact, has been created The electronics industry has a remarkable impact on the environment, yet research is devising new solutions to reduce it. Among these, a new compound with an unutterable name, the diisopropylammonium bromide (DIPAB), a new ferroelectric material created by an international team of researchers that include Massimo Capone and Gianluca Giovannetti of Istituto Officina dei Materiali at CNR and of the...
CEDAR PARK, Texas, Jan. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- EEStor, Inc. ("EEStor") is pleased to report the materials science context for their work and preliminary (pre-certification) results from energy storage layers built in its pilot production facility during early final tuning. The preliminary results show EEStor's patented and unique composition modified barium titanate (CMBT) powder delivers the benefits of solid-state energy storage when used as a fundamental constituent in a...
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...
Successful imaging of individual atoms and associated electric fields in ferroelectrics could lead the way to a new era of advanced electronics As scientists learn to manipulate little-understood nanoscale materials, they are laying the foundation for a future of more compact, efficient, and innovative devices. In research to be published online July 8 in the journal Nature Materials, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National...
The boundary between electronics and biology is blurring with the first detection by researchers at Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory of ferroelectric properties in an amino acid called glycine. A multi-institutional research team led by Andrei Kholkin of the University of Aveiro, Portugal, used a combination of experiments and modeling to identify and explain the presence of ferroelectricity, a property where materials switch their polarization when an electric field is...
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...
The heart’s inner workings are mysterious, perhaps even more so with a new finding. Engineers at the University of Washington have discovered an electrical property in arteries not seen before in mammalian tissues. The researchers found that the wall of the aorta, the largest blood vessel carrying blood from the heart, exhibits ferroelectricity, a response to an electric field known to exist in inorganic and synthetic materials. The findings are being published in an upcoming issue of...
ORNL experiments prove nanoscale metallic conductivity in ferroelectrics The prospect of electronics at the nanoscale may be even more promising with the first observation of metallic conductance in ferroelectric nanodomains by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Ferroelectric materials, which switch their polarization with the application of an electric field, have long been used in devices such as ultrasound machines and sensors. Now, discoveries about ferroelectrics'...
