The research objective of this award is to study the structure property relationships of functional gradients created through the use of nanowires. The use of nanowires to create a functional gradient is a novel approach that has not been explored, yet could provide significantly improved performance while maintaining the composition of each phase. A functional gradient is often created through the blending of ceramic or precursor materials at the interface which is difficult to control and can lead to inferior properties due to compositional changes resulting from diffusion of the two phases. This issue is of principle concern in electroceramics where the properties are strongly related to the purity of the ceramic. While the research will seek to identify the fundamental properties of strain transfer across a nanowire interface, our efforts will be focused by the application of the graded interface to multiferroic materials. The goal will be to produce the highest degree of multiferroic coupling while developing a new methodology for creating functional gradients that maintain the material's phase and connectivity across the interface as well as producing direct measurement of the strain gradient created such that modeling tools can be developed for the nanoscale interface.
The broader impacts of this this award will provide a new methodology to create a nanoscale functional gradient across an interface. The efforts will be directly applied to the growing field of multiferroic materials and will focus on both basic and applied challenges to the application of multiferroic materials and thus offers potential for a wide range of future research efforts approaching more efficient design of ME devices. The proposed techniques could be applied to a wide range of application that involve an interface between dissimilar materials including thermal interfaces, semiconductors and composites as well as many emerging technologies that provide positive societal impact. Beyond providing an increased understanding of the mechanics across a functional gradient, the resear
