Bath Engineering & Design Studentships: Novel fabrication methods for layered ferroelectric ceramic architectures

This project is one of a number in competition for a studentship from the Faculty of Engineering and Design at the University of Bath. If successful, this studentship is expected to commence 04 October 2027.

An alternative start date may be possible if agreed with your intended supervisors and the Doctoral College.

This project will develop novel methods for fabricating layered ferroelectric architectures with exceptional multifunctional properties for sensing, energy harvesting and storage. Layered architectures will be designed to enhance functionality beyond the state-of-the-art, while the methods used to make them will reduce their embedded energy via significant reductions in either time or temperature of the sintering stage.

Layered ferroelectric ceramic architectures are widely used in industry as sensors, medical ultrasonics, and multilayer ceramic capacitors but are currently constrained by the manufacturing process in which all constituent materials and layers are co-fired. This limits the possible material combinations, restricting performance and increasing cost as, e.g., cheaper electrode materials cannot be used due to unwanted chemical reactions. Finding a solution to this challenge will not only improve existing materials and devices, but also open opportunities to create new multifunctional composites, e.g. magnetoelectric composites for wireless charging of medical implants.

The project will utilise two low energy sintering techniques that have emerged in recent years. Firstly, the recently discovered blacklight sintering process [1], which exploits optical absorption of light at the surface of materials to produce the heat necessary to sinter (densify) ceramics, will be explored as a method of rapidly sintering sequential layers of material without degrading or reacting with the preceding layer. Secondly, cold sintering [2] will be used as a relatively low temperature method – sintering at below 300 deg.C (compared to >1000 deg.C in conventional sintering) is achieved by introducing a liquid flux and moderate pressure to facilitate mass transport. Here materials will very different thermal behaviour can be co-processed, e.g. ceramics, metals and polymers, providing an avenue to create functional composite structures unobtainable with conventional methods.

Both experimental and modelling work is required to further our understanding of the fundamental sintering mechanics and the structure-property relationships across length scales. This project could be tailored depending on the experience and skillset of the successful candidate. The research group has experience in combining these and the student will be supported to learn complementary modelling or experimental techniques throughout the project.