Designing and Thin Film Engineering of Organic Plastic Ionic Ferroelectrics towards Multi-sensor Electronic Skin

Designing and Thin Film Engineering of Organic Plastic Ionic Ferroelectrics towards Multi-sensor Electronic Skin

Organic plastic ferroelectrics with inherent pyroelectric and piezoelectric properties have the potential to outperform traditional ceramic ferroelectrics, particularly in terms of sustainability and large area fabrication as flexible coatings. The latter is highly sought as means to continue the current evolution of humanoid robots by offering touch sensitive electronic skins. FERROPLAST focuses on development of plastic ionic crystals (PICs) as the active sensitive component of such skins. PICs are comprised of globular ions tethered by weak intermolecular forces and demonstrate plastic crystal phase at higher temperatures. The PIC ferroelectrics possess intriguing features as high pyro and piezoelectric coefficients, malleability, and multi-axial polarization suitable to realize multi-sensor property in flexible thin films. FERROPLAST proposes: (1) Rational designing of PICs based on chirality, ionic size and intermolecular interaction strength to have high pyro/piezoelectric coefficients; (2) Fabrication of crystalline and phase pure PIC thin films embedded in elastomer by molecular layer deposition (MLD) for application as flexible electronic skin; (3) Study of crystal phase landscape in thin films under variable temperature and pressure using grazing incidence XRD to estimate multi-sensor ability of PICs; (4) Selection of ions by insight in entropy of phase transitions as calculated by first principle DFT studies. At the core of FERROPLAST is knowledge building and exchange between the experienced researcher’s background in supramolecular chemistry to design and synthesize PIC ferroelectrics and the host’s core focus on MLD thin film engineering and characterization of physical properties in thin film structures, and the secondment on first principle DFT calculation of lattice phonon density of state. FERROPLAST will expand the competence and focus of all parties by mutual aid and competence building to push our respective fields further beyond state of art.