New Meta and Nanomaterials for Photorefractive Enhancement and Photorefractive Two-Beam Coupling

摘要

This grant has resulted in a highly collaborative effort between CIQA, AFOSR and several other institutions and involved experimental and theoretical work on the synthesis and characterization of ferroelectric nanoscale particles and their interactions with liquid crystal systems of interest to AFOSR to form hybrid systems for photorefractive enhancement and photorefractive two-beam coupling in hybrid devices. Six international presentations resulted (4 invited, 1 contributed and one poster) along with two submitted papers (Optics Express (accepted) and Nano Letters). A U.S. provisional patent was filed 'Stress Induced Phase Changes in Ferroic and Non- Ferroic Materials,' Docket no. AFD 1053. The collaborative studies unequivocally demonstrated for the first time that crystalline ferroic materials such as barium titanate can exhibit ferroelectric properties in particles of 10 and less nanometers in size. State of the art high resolution transmission electron microscopy strain measurements of ball milled vs chemically precipitated nanoscale barium titanate suggest mechanical milling as the source of the strain and subsequent ferroelectric behavior.