Development of new ferroelectric nanoparticle of fluorite structure through electron microscopy direct observation

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K18952
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 26:Materials engineering and related fields
• Research Institution: Kyushu University
• Principal Investigator: Sato Yukio 九州大学, 工学研究院, 准教授 (80581991)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-06-29 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: ナノ粒子 / ハフニア / 電子顕微鏡 / チタン酸バリウム / ジルコニア

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this research project, we have carried out hydrothermal synthesis and atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy studies, aiming to develop new ferroelectric nanoparticles. We have succeeded producing hafnium dioxide, zirconium dioxide, and hafnium-zirconium dioxide nanoparticles with good crystal qualities and a single phase. Furthermore, we have developed a new methodology, two-step affine transformation method, to reduce an error in lattice parameters measured by atomic-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy. Development of the method is reported in a couple of papers (Sato et al., Phys. Status Solidi, 2019 and Fujinaka et al., J. Mater. Sci., 2020) so far. A part of this method is applied to characterize atomic-scale polarization behavior in a barium titanate nanoparticle, which successfully visualized the depth-sectional multi-domain structure in the particle (Sato et al., ACS Appl. Nanomater., 2019.).

Free Research Field

誘電体セラミックス

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究成果の意義は２つあり、１つは新しい誘電体ナノ材料の可能性を提示したことであり、これは将来コンデンサなどの新規電子セラミックスの開発につながる重要な治験である。もう１つは電子顕微鏡解析における新しい可能性を開拓したことである。本研究で開発された「2段階アフィン変換法」はこれまで電子顕微鏡解析の大きな欠点であった格子定数の誤差を大幅に低減するものであり、ナノ粒子材料の新しい結晶構造解析手法を提供し、材料解析の可能性を大幅に拡げるものである。