Functional Ferroelectrics – Page 4 – Activities within the Multidisciplinary Studies on Ceramics Group (MSCG). Department of Multifunctional Materials at ICMM-CSIC (Spain)

Device Modelling based on Materials Characterization

A model of multifunctionality

Ferroelectrics are bi-stable materials with interesting properties (non-linear dielectric permittivity, pyroelectricity, piezoelectricity, etc.). For more information see here. Currently used in devices for information and communication technologies, transport and health, their potential for energy harvesting and storage or as fotovoltaics is nowadays under research.

Piezoelectric Ceramics

Polycrystalline ferroelectrics have wide applications as piezoelectric sensors and actuators (motors, ultrasonic generation for ecography, non-destructive testing (NDT), high power ultrasonic machining and many others). See "Materials" journal Special Issue in 2021.

Environmental respect

During the last two decades a great number of countries in all continents have legislated to replace commercial ceramics based on the xPbTiO₃-(1-x)PbZrO₃ solid solution, known as PZT, with Lead-Free materials. See our review: "Towards Lead-Free Piezoceramics: Facing a Synthesis Challenge".

Advanced structural characterization

There is a trend on development of synchrotron environments for the study of a new generation of field-driven device. See our work: "Ferroelectrics under the synchrotron light: A review".

Device Modelling based on Materials Characterization

The measurement of complex impedance at the, electrically excited, mechanical resonances of lossy ferro-piezoelectric ceramics is used for their full matrix characterization. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is used as a reliability criteria of this. See our work on determination of Piezo-Dielectric and Elastic matrices of material coefficients, including all losses, for 3D-modelling in commercial PIC700 eco-piezoceramic.

Welcome to our activities

Our objective is the development of new, knowledge-based materials for applications in energy harvesting and storage, industry, transport, medicine and information, among many other technologies, and, specifically, in transducers, sensors and actuators using poled polycrystalline ferroelectrics, the so called piezoelectric ceramics. Equally important, the research is aimed at the improvement of existing fundamental knowledge on the preparation processes and the structure, properties and mechanisms present in these materials. Given their direct impact on applications, the transfer of this knowledge to industry is contemplated as a general objective. Learn about our activities before March 2016 here. Our recent past interest and focuss in the future is to produce Lead-Free ferroelectrics of industrial interest by Green Chemistry and to extend the Advanced Techniques for their study and Performance Optimization. From May 2024 this are actions within the ICMM Group on Multidisciplinary Studies on Ceramics. The near future activities within this Group will be towards the development of sustainable materials for biomedical applications (biocide capability, tissue regeneration, biosensors, medical devices, etc) and other sustainable applications requiring mechanically robust ceramics. News on our activities can be found at the MSCG web page

The new Special Issue on "Piezoelectrics and Ferroelectrics for End Users" of Materials MDPI journal is now open for submissions

After the succeed of the Special Issue in Materials MDPI "Piezoelectric Ceramics: From Fundamentals to Applications"(ISSN 1996-1944) with 10 published manuscripts and a Review, a new Special Issue: "Piezoelectrics and Ferroelectrics for End Users" is now on-line. The ferro-piezoelectric ceramics are a good example of multifunctionality. Emerging applications in energy (energy storage, piezoelectric harvesting, photovoltaic, thermoelectricity...) have increasing interest nowadays. The demand of lead-free piezo-ferroelectrics must be accompanied by the development of green methods of processing. The mechanical properties of ferro-piezoelectric ceramics are difficult to control, and this opens a challenging field of activities. Manuscripts on a wide range of topics in this area are welcomed for submission.

The Virtual Special Issue on "PIEZO2017"

"PIEZO2017" took place in Cercedilla (Madrid, Spain) 19-22 February, 2017. This event was organised by CSIC and UPM together with PI. A Winter School on Advanced Characterization of Piezoceramics took place in parallel. See here the abstracts book

PIEZO2023 and Associated Winter Shool were held in Glasgow in conjunction with Ferroelectric UK 2023

The University of Sassari, Sardinia, Italy, virtually hosted "PIEZO2021: Piezoelectrics for End Users XI" due to COVID19 Pandemia. Over 90 persons from 30 organizations and 15 countries contributed. The meeting continued the well established tradition of bringing together academia and industry within the field for discussion and networking. PIEZO2023, the last edition of this series took place presentially in Glasgow, and was a joint event with the well know Ferroelectric UK 2023 conference, last November 5 – 8, 2023 (November 5 was also held the traditional School linked to PIEZO conferences). The Programmes of these events are still avaliable on-line ....

International Center for Diffraction Data

17 March, 2016 6 March, 2019

Prof. María Elena Villafuerte-Castrejón is invited at 2016 ICDD Spring Meetings 14-18 March 2016 – ICDD Headquarters. Newtown Square, Philadelphia (PA), USA and contributes with the work on “Multi-symmetric structure of (1-x)(Bi0.5Na0.5)TiO3-x(Ba0.9Ca0.1)TiO3 ceramics” by M. E. Villafuerte-Castrejón, R. Vivar-Ocampo, A. M. González and L Pardo. The works on structural determination by X-ray on…