Lead-free ferroelectrics for piezoelectric sensors or high power energy storage: Professor Jiagang Wu

Rb-based energy materials

Rb based ferroelectrics

Ferroelectrics are materials characterized by a Curie point and polarization switching. The Curie point sets the upper limit on the application of ferroelectric ceramics for piezoelectric applications. The aim of this project is develop Rb-based ferroelectric ceramics for high temperature piezoelectric applications.

Performance Enhancement of thermoelectric MgAgSb based composite from ferroelectric order

Composites including thermoelectric MgAgSb and ferroelectric nanoparticles (PbTiO3 and BaTiO3) will be fabricated via spark plasma sintering. The spontaneous polarization from ferroelectric ordering can tailor the carrier concentration and mobility of the matrix. In addition, ferroelectric nanoparticles can also scatter long/medium wavelength phonons, and improve the thermoelectric transport properties.

Rb-based Dielectric Materials

Dielectric capacitors play an essential role in advanced energy storage and electrical power pulse electronic systems and related devices due to their ultrahigh power density and ultrafast charge and discharge speeds. This aim of this project is develop Rb-based dielectric for high power energy storage.

Distinguished Visiting Fellowship

Multiferroic (MF) materials with simultaneous ferroelectricity and magnetism hold great potential for novel applications. However, it remains a big challenge to find proper single-phase materials with significant magnetoelectric coupling at room temperature. Our aim is to understand the physics of MF and to achieve strong ME effects at room temperature.

PRINTEG - Advanced manufacturing for low-cost Thermo-electric device fabrication

For an automotive combustion engine only 35% of the energy produced is harnessed for motive power, with 65% of the  energy being effectively 'lost' to the environment - 25% of that lost energy is transferred into the exhaust gases. For a typical 100hp (75kW) engine, the waste heat energy is ...

Super High Curie Point Piezoelectric Ceramics

High-temperature piezoelectric sensing technology is of major importance to the chemical and material processing, automotive, aerospace, and power generating industries. Ferroelectrics are desirable for piezoelectric application below their Curie points. Ferroelectric polycrystalline ceramics have the advantages over...

Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS)

Ceramics are normally processed by the consolidation of powders by sintering at high temperatures. The time required for this process is usually measured in hours because of the slow rate of heating/cooling of the furnaces used. Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS), as it is commonly referred to, is a rapid sintering process, where the...

Nanoceramics

There is currently a great interest in size effects in materials. There are many properties that change dramatically when the grain size or component dimensions are below 100 nm. A wide range of nanoscale ceramic powders have been synthesised with dimensions in the nanometre range. However, during conventional sintering the...

Lead-free piezoelectrics

Lead oxide based ferroelectrics, represented by lead zirconate titanate (PZT), are the most widely used materials for piezoelectric actuators, sensors and transducers due to their excellent piezoelectric properties when their compositions are close to morphotropic phase boundary (MPB). PZT contains more than 60 wt% lead, which...

Carbon Nanotube - Ceramic Composites

Using Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) is is possible to process new composites, with new windows of properties, that were previously not possible to fabricate using conventional processing routes, non-equilibrium composites. When two non-equilibrium phases are processed by conventional sintering they react to form the equilibrium...