Material Optimization for Data Driven Design engineeRing in Non-linear applications

Wastes recovery of siderurgy industry Steel industry wastes are an environmental problem for the industry. In this project we are studying ways of reutilization of the muds for increase its value.

Thin films processing for the obtaining of BiFeO3-B4Ti3O12 based-multiferroic thin films thorough a sustainable methodology in an aqueous medium, and the subsequent study of their ferroelectric and ferromagnetic response to evaluate its potential applications in microelectronic devices. This research line includes the following research sublines:

• 1. The use of a sustainable methodology to obtain multiferroic thin films. To date, well-defined layered composites with a precise control over the interfaces have been fabricated by using sophisticated thin film deposition technologies like PLD, MBE, RF magnetron sputtering. All these techniques however involve high energy operations in terms of temperature and/or vacuum, unavoidably exerting a harmful contribution to the global climate but also restraining the spectrum of accessible materials (e.g. non-volatile substances). Visibly superlative benefits, such as simplicity, economic efficiency, or environmental benevolence can be achieved from the use of feasible sustainable processing technologies (e.g. wet chemical methods), if and when a well-matched interface between the two phases would be still guaranteed. In this view, an effective alternative could be a chemical solution deposition based on a combined sol–gel plus spin-coating procedure. The main limitation of this methodology might be found in the implicit toxicity of certain organic solvents, involved in the synthesis of the precursor solutions. However, this restraint can be overcome by applying the so-called aqueous solution-gel methodology, where precursors of the metals of interest are dissolved in an aqueous medium.
• 2. Constraint considerations associated with the simultaneous presence of magnetism and ferroelectricity typically lead to low critical temperatures in single-phase structures, making their multiferroic response unpractical. Such limitations have redirected efforts to a more realistic approach, which is the fabrication of heterogeneous composite systems, in which the different order parameters need not to coexist in the same phase. In this case, BiFeO3 would be the magnetic counterpart while B4Ti3O12 the ferroelectric one. To succeed, it is essential to achieve optimal coupling between the crystalline structures at the interface between both materials.