Departmental Seminar - Materials Science and Engineering: Prof. Nava Setter

Prof. Nava Setter

Faculty of Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - EPFL
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tel Aviv University

Venus of Moravia and Reconfigurable Nanoelectronics: 30,000 years of Ceramics Engineering

Room 118, Wolfson Mechanical Engineering Building

Abstract:

The oldest existing (wo)man-made materials are 28,000-years old ceramic objects, found near Brno (Czech Republic). Modern ceramics technology

follows similar production principles but the scale has changed: A sub 10

nm brick-by-brick design is feasible and in-situ reconfigurable micro- and
nanostructures are more than mere objects of the imagination.

The seminar will be focused on a particular group of ceramic materials called
ferroelectrics and the research towards their implementation in reconfigurable
nano-electronics. Ferroelectrics are part of so-called ‘smart materials’, materials
that change their properties under external stimuli. They are widely used in
electronics and communications, electromechanics, and acoustics. An important
feature, inherent to all ferroelectrics, even in a perfect single crystal form is the
existence of domain walls. These are internal interfaces, 1-3 nm wide, that can
be manipulated by voltage pulses or mechanical stress.

For the past 5 years, the internal structure and properties of domain walls
have been intensively studied. We have learned to position and displace them,
functionalize them, and make domain wall arrays having desired patterns.
Among the obtained results are domain walls with metallic conductivity
inside the electrically insulating ferroelectric, dense patterns of domain arrays
having <10 nm periodicity, monitored displacement of domain walls, and a
demonstrated reconfigurability, promising new possibilities for domain-wall
control and its utilization.