Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Research in the field of functional materials plays an important role in solving current and future global challenges related to societal problems concerning energy, environment and health. This proposal describes a comprehensive research program that explores the frontiers of an important class of functional materials, the ferroic materials, including the piezoelectrics (which convert mechanical energy into electrical energy, and vice versa), ferroelectrics (with switchable polarization) and magnetoelectrics (with interacting polarization and magnetization). These materials are useful in a vast range of industrial and commercial applications, e.g. as nonvolatile random-access memory devices in future computers, 'smart' sensors and actuators for active control of vibration or noise, high-resolution ultrasonic transducers for medical imaging, bio-sensing or energy harvesting. The intriguing ferroic properties, which are essential to these applications, result from the microscopic and nanoscopic crystal chemistry of materials, i.e. the nature of constituent ions and chemical bonding, the atomic and spin arrangements, and the related phase components and transitions. Therefore, understanding the relationship between nanostructure and macroscopic functional properties is central to ferroic materials research, and it is along this line that our research program is established.We will develop new synthetic strategies for the preparation of high-performance ferroic materials in the forms of single crystals, ceramics and thin films, and characterize their crystal and magnetic structures, dielectric, piezoelectric, ferroelectric and magnetic properties. Complete characterization of the physical properties will allow us to exploit the potentials of the materials synthesized in device applications. This program will provide a better understanding of the relationships between the synthetic chemistry, structures and physical properties, which in turn will allow us to design and tailor-make new ferroic materials with enhanced properties for many applications in advanced technologies and in the next generation consumer products, improving our standards of living. This interdisciplinary research program also provides great opportunities for the training of HQP.