RESEARCH PROJECTS:
Professor Trolier-McKinstry’s research interests are centered around structure-processing-property relationships in electroceramics. This includes work on understanding the fundamentals that control the magnitude of the dielectric and piezoelectric responses; the reliability of the materials; the processing science associated with depositing and patterning thin film electroceramics with excellent structural and composition control; and piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems (piezoMEMS).

Professor Trolier-McKinstry’s group is developing sensors and actuators that are compatible with CMOS electronics (and hence low driving voltages). Her group has approached this by trying to maximize the figure of merit for the material response through control of composition, crystallographic orientation, grain size, and changes in boundary conditions. The work includes fundamental studies on the factors that control domain wall contributions to the properties and the role of octahedral tilt in influencing response. Her group also does work on damage-free patterning of complex oxides, and fabrication of piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems, including accelerometers, pumps, switches, adaptive optics components for the next generation X-ray telescope, energy harvesters, and ultrasound systems with close-coupled electronics. They are also working on preparing high strain actuator films at low processing temperatures (< 400oC).

Bulk and thin film dielectrics are of interest for on and off-chip decoupling capacitors, as well as tunable components. Professor Trolier-McKinstry’s group emphasizes the development of a wide range of dielectrics covering the permittivity range from 30 to 3000. Recent work has focused on using Rayleigh and Preisach methods to quantify the properties over a wide range of ac and dc electric fields. The same tools are also being used to study reliability and the relative roles of various defect types in controlling the properties. In addition, her group is exploring development of new dielectrics for energy storage applications.