Barium Titanate-Based Magnetoelectric Nanocomposites

Barium Titanate (BaTiO3 or BTO) has attracted an ever increasing research interest because of its wide range of potential applications. Nano-sized or nanostructured BTO has found applications in new, useful smart devices, such as sensors and piezoelectric devices. Not only limited to one material, multi-layers or multi-phases can lead to multifunctional applications; for example, nanocomposites can be fabricated with ferrite or metal phase with BTO. In this study, I synthesized various BTO-ferrites, ranging from nanoparticles, nanowires to thin films. BTO-ferrite coaxial nanotubes, BTO-ferrite self-assemble thin films, and BTO single phase films were prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and sol-gel process. BTO-ferrite nanocomposites were grown by solid state reaction. Furthermore, BTO-metal nanostructures were also synthesized by solid state reaction under hydrogen gas which gave us a great inspiration to fabricate metal-ceramic composites.

To understand the relationship between metal and BTO ceramic phase, I also deposited BTO film on Au buffered substrates. A metal layer can affect the grain size and orientation in BTO film which can further help us to control the distribution of dielectric properties of BTO films.

After obtaining different nanomaterials, I am interested in the applications of these materials. Recently, many interesting electric devices are developed based on nanotechnology, e.g.: memristor. Memristor is a resistor with memory, which is very important in the computer memory. I believe these newly-synthesized BTO based nanostructures are useful for development of memristor, sensors and other devices to fit increasing needs.