Dopants can largely affect the properties of functional perovskite ceramics through their influence on the lattice-based intrinsic properties and their impact on the property- determined microstructure characteristics. For successful Fermi-level engineering of oxide ceramics, one crucial step is thus to understand the correlation among doping, processing, and the resultant microstructure characteristics. One of the major challenges lies in the multiphysics involvement.
This project aims to develop an electro-chemo-mechanical and Fermi-level informed phase- field grain growth model to study the microstructure evolution of perovskite oxides. The developed theory will be demonstrated for doped BaTiO3 as the prototype perovskite system. Results will reveal the formation mechanisms of GB segregation, microstructure evolution, and the resultant microstructure characteristics and their dependency on the dopants and the Fermi Energy Levels (FELs).