Piezoelectricity in thin film and nanowire nitrides, nitride alloys

Dr. Ferenc Tasnadi

A general, short description of the topics:

Piezoelectricity is a more than 100 years old phenomenon but still has a remarkable impact on our modern everyday life. Piezoelectric devices are used in everyday objects such as mobile-phones, touch-sensitive elevator buttons, GPS, bluetooth etc. The fact that piezoelectric sensors offer an enormous set of capabilities has caused a rapid rise in the piezoelectric technology. Industry consumes more than 3 billion piezoelectric sensors per year. Modern piezoelectric technology is centered around the development of novel functional materials. Alloying of two or more piezoelectric materials can lead to unexpected, anomalous material behavior. Accurate theoretical treatment of piezoelectricity become possible only with the fascinating modern geometric Berry- Phase approach. Microscopic modeling of tensorial quantities in disordered alloys, such as piezoelectricity, is among the hot topics in theoretical alloy physics.

1) The effect of in-plan strain on the piezoelectric response in ScAlN and/or GaAlN alloys

2) Explore the relation between acoustic phonon softening, free-energy landscape and
enhanced piezoelectric response in nitride alloys

3) Dynamical simulations on the temperature dependence of the piezoelectric response in
wurtzite binary materials (AlN, GaN, InN)

4) Ab-initio elastic and piezoelectric properties of nanowires: binary InN, GaN, AlN and
their alloys
 

Contact: Dr. Ferenc Tasnadi tasnadi@ifm.liu.se