News

Korean National Science & Technology Commission A delegation of the Korean National Science & Technology Commission (NSTC) Delegation led by Dr. Cha-Dong Kim visited us on 7 December.
For more information about NSTC visit the website.

Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering During the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) Benelex Student meeting, Niels De Greef is selected for the best presentation award together with a student from UCL and is nominated for the JEC award competition, which will be held in conjunction with the SAMPE Europe Student Meeting in Paris, March 2012. Congratulations!

Niels De Greef will receive a KU Leuven policy mandate for one year for his excellent performance. Well done!

Recent Highlights

Correlation between strain and the metal–insulator transition in epitaxial V2O3 thin films grown by Molecular Beam EpitaxyCorrelation between strain and the metal–insulator transition in epitaxial V2O3 thin films grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy by L. Dillemans et al.,


Deposition and characterization of MgO/Si gate stacksDeposition and characterization of MgO/Si gate stacks grown by molecular beam epitaxy by Chen-Yi Su et al.,


Thermally induced phase separation in PaMSAN/PMMA blends in presence of functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes: Rheology, morphology and electrical conductivity by Ceren Özdilek et al.,


Striking influence of the catalyst support and its acid-base properties: New insight into the growth mechanism of carbon nanotubes by Arnaud Magrez et al.,


Fabrication of homogeneous titania/MWNT composite materials by Barbara Korbély et al.,


Research

Electric field induced metal - insulator - transition (MIT)

For non-volatile memory (NVM) applications, the goal is to change from flash technology towards more compact and scalable designs using alternative mechanisms. Phase change (PCM) and resistive switching memories (RRAM) are two popular approaches, but in this project we excludes mechanisms relying on transport and rearrangement of atoms and concentrate on purely electronic phase transition between an insulating and a metallic state.

There are many materials that show a MIT for instance as a function of doping. The adjacent Figure shows the resistivity changes versus temperature for the Pr(Ca,Sr)MnO3 compound. In this project, the goal is to find systems that display an MIT at high temperatures (>400K). In addition the MIT must be switchable by an electric field. The resistance ratio between the metallic and the insulating state should exceed 1000.

This research project is funded in part by the FWO project on Metal insulator transitions in correlated electron systems.