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About

The FerroEnergy Project is a research action funded by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The action pursues the understanding of physicochemical phenomena occurring in nanometric membranes of complex materials and the exploitation of the membranes functionalities for energy efficient electronic devices and platforms for thermal, mechanical and light energy conversion

Research Objectives

The rapid development of the semiconductor-based technology has enabled today’s functionalities and convenience that seemed impossible just a generation ago. Today, we rely upon numerous electronic devices that are pervasive around us to augment, accelerate, and alleviate countless tasks. In order to maintain the current (and desired) technological progression into the future, and to make this progress sustainable for the next generation, the performance of these devices must be improved in a more energy-efficient way.


Complex oxides – a family of materials displaying a vast diversity of physical properties – are a promising alternative for creating the superior technologies that could ensure this extended progress. Despite their promise, the two main obstacles currently impeding their implementation are:

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  1. Continued lack of a complete understanding of the microscopic phenomena governing the properties, and

  2. The difficulty in integrating such materials with existing processes in the semiconductor industry.


This Project exploits a novel fabrication process, inspired by the manipulation of single atomic layers such as graphene, but applied in a completely new way: to produce macroscopically large freestanding oxide thin films. Such films present a system free of mechanical clamping and are ideal to explore, optimize and manipulate the intrinsic functionalities of these materials.

 

In this Project, I study freestanding ferroelectric oxide films, with the idea of integrating these films with semiconductor and flexible substrates for the development of next-gen nanoelectronic devices, as well as finding new routes towards the optimization of energy conversion capabilities of these materials.

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This multidisciplinary experimental research is developed at two top level research groups in United States and Spain, led by top experts in the field of Ferroelectric Oxides

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