As good insulators, oxides are widely used in microelectronics. However, they also have ferroelectric, piezoelectric, magnetic, multiferroic and superconducting properties. Doped oxides can also be extremely good electrical conductors.
Therefore their applications range from sensors and actuators, gate barriers for microelectronics, superconducting filters for mobile telephony, to FRAM memories, infrared detectors and self-cleaning tiles. Ion-conducting oxides play an essential role in fuel cells and batteries. Since the oxides are usually doped by intrinsic oxygen defects and oxygen also diffuses easily, much attention is paid in the oxide electronics to the control of the oxygen concentration.
However, the electronic properties of the oxides can also be changed dramatically by external doping.
Our research interest is to clarify the interplay of defects and functional properties using first-principles calculations.
Projects
We are currently working on the following topics:
- Doping of lead-free piezoceramics and antiferroelectrics
- Kinetics of defects and domain walls
- Dislocations in perovskite structures
- Relaxor materials for electrocaloric applications
- Polarization switching
