Overview

About Electroceramics Electroceramics research group is part of the Associated Laboratory CICECO of the University of Aveiro, and it is located at the Department of Materials and Ceramics Engineering, DEMaC. The leader of Electroceramics Group is professor Paula M. Vilarinho. The group’s research interests are associated with functional materials for applications mainly in microelectronics and are centered on structure-processing-property-application relationships in electroceramics. This includes work on bulk, thin and thick films, composite and nanostructures of dielectrics, piezoelectrics, ferroelectrics, and incipient ferroelectrics, for diverse applications. The group makes use of the highest level of electrical characterization tools (impedance spectroscopy, piezo-ferroelectric analysis, scanning probe microscopy), in a wide frequency/temperature range, complemented with structure/microstructure tools (scanning and transmission high-resolution electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, XAFS, among others). Several more recent interests appeared on the group that are: (i) additive manufacturing, specifically of ceramics, and (ii) low-temperature sintering techniques, namely Field Assisted Sintering Techniques (as SPS and FLASH) and cold sintering. We are particularly interested in: i) The development of high-quality materials for compatible integration at low costs and low temperatures. ii) Understanding nanosized effects and nanotechnology aspects of electroceramics. iii) Exploitation the use of piezoelectric activity in tissue engineering. iv) Additive manufacturing of traditional and electroceramics. v) Sustainability of electroceramics sintering process. vi) The exploitation of the commercialization of some of our results.