The proposed research aims to understand the relationship between the domain configuration of ferroelectric (FE) materials and macroscopic properties, which will lead to an optimal microstructure tuning strategy for enhanced properties and new material development. Despite the significant amount of reports on domain engineering techniques for FE properties enhancement, understanding of the associated fundamental mechanism remains inconclusive. It is still unclear whether it is preferable to decrease the domain size or increase the density of the domain walls. There has still been a lack of knowledge on the domain size dependence in the intrinsic (i.e., domain) and the extrinsic (i.e., domain wall) contribution to the macroscopic material behavior due to the limitations in the conventional experimental techniques (e.g., XRD and PFM). We propose a novel approach utilizing X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) based on the coherent synchrotron source to investigate the effects of domain/domain wall contributions to the in-situ piezoelectric behaviors. Our preliminary results indicate that XPCS can detect the dynamic fluctuation in the Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT) single crystal samples varied by the domain wall density or the domain size. We also demonstrated the feasibility of controlling domain size and domain wall density by electric poling and creating domain heterogeneity using composite nanoelectrodes. These preliminary results encouraged us to search for answers to the following research questions: What are the domain scaling effects on the intrinsic and extrinsic contributions to piezoelectricity? How does the large piezoelectricity emerge from the heterogeneous domain configuration? To address those questions, three objectives are proposed: 1) To distinguish the intrinsic and extrinsic response signals using the ���two-field��� decorrelation approach, 2) To investigate the effect of the intrinsic and extrinsic responses varied by the domain configuration on the macroscopic piezoelectricity and 3) To reveal the role of local heterogeneities in determining the overall material response in consideration of both the intrinsic and extrinsic contributions.

The long-term goal of the research is to develop an economical manufacturing method producing large-area superhydrophobic (SHPo) surfaces for hydrodynamic drag reduction (DR) by utilizing spontaneous 3-dimensional (3D) structure generation in roll coating of viscoelastic composite polymer. SHPo surfaces featured by 3D topographical structures are studied as a superior DR technology. While there is a spray-type product that coats a layer of random 3D geometry, it was found that the periodic linear grating structures provide superior DR performance stability. However, the high cost of producing large-area SHPo surfaces with periodic grating structure by the lithography-based micro-fabrication is still an obstacle to practical implementation. To address this challenge, we propose to utilize an inexpensive and scalable roll coating method producing the linear grates by the ribbing instability, which are spontaneously generated on the polymer surface due to the shear stress applied by the rollers. The specific objectives for the long-term goal are (1) to test the hypothesis that linear ribbing can be obtained near the instability onset condition predicted by a theoretical model and observed for the different manufacturing processes for polymer composites, and (2) to establish the fundamental knowledge of the relationship between the roll coating process conditions, the micro-grating structure geometry, and the DR efficiency.

A senior team who co-authored the Integrated Power Electronics (IPE) Chapter 10 of the IEEE Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap (HIR), brings over 100 years of industry and academic experience to: ��� Define an Exemplar 3DHI Power Microsystem (3DHIP) which tightly integrates arrays of gallium nitride (GaN) transistors, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) gate drivers and capacitors in a "half-bridge circuit��� building block and used with integrated passives (e.g., inductor) technologies. The 3DHIPs significantly improve efficiency and power density of IVRs (Integrated Voltage Regulators) and board-mount PSiPs (power supplies in package) to meet DARPA���s goals in 3DHI with focus on power. ��� Define the design, process and equipment requirements for an open-access 3DHIP Manufacturing Center drawing from industry-leading tool and components suppliers, and facility operators such as Applied Materials, Micross Components, X-Celeprint, NCSU-Nanofabrication Facility, Hesse Mechatronics US, Tyndall National Institute (Ireland), selected HIR-IPE team members, Power America, NCSU Faculty, and others to be added during the Phase-0.