ECE Associate Professor Roozbeh Tabrizian & Professor Philip Feng, along with PhD student Troy Tharpe and Post-Doctoral Associate Dr. Xu-Qian Zheng, have co-authored a paper which currently graces the cover of the esteemed journal Advanced Engineering Materials. The publication, “Resolving Mechanical Properties and Morphology Evolution of Free-Standing Ferroelectric Hf0.5Zr0.5O2,” investigates the fundamental properties of this novel ferroelectric material which is uniquely positioned to realize nanomechanical sensors and actuators in advanced semiconductor chips for the first time.

Dr. Tabrizian is optimistic about the future of this unique material:

“Being the only CMOS material that provides ferroelectricity and piezoelectricity at few nanometers thickness, atomic-layered hafnia-zirconia is poised to enrich electronic chips with additional functionalities such as timing and frequency reference generation, RF spectral processing, and inertial sensing. To realize this grand potential, we are passionately investigating a wide range of electromechanical properties and their fundamental limitations in hafnia-zirconia.”

This project is supported by NSF and DARPA grants, targeting development of integrated nanoelectromechanical resonators for the emerging Connected World and IoT applications.

More information, including access to the article via UF George A. Smathers Libraries, is here.