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Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics (CDP)

Center Overview

The Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics (CDP) supports industries that develop and manufacture materials and devices that underpin the functionality of consumer electronics, medical ultrasound, wireless communication devices, electrical vehicles, and a variety of other important technology areas. CDP supports scientific progress in these areas through the development of new materials, processing strategies, electrical testing, and nanoscale characterization and modeling methodologies. Its research addresses a broad and diverse number of scientific challenges across the dielectric- and piezoelectric-based industries. CDP's goals are to:

Serve as a leading international center dedicated to improving the science and technology of dielectric and piezoelectric materials and their integration into devices.
Perform innovative interdisciplinary research that will lead to novel breakthroughs in dielectric and piezoelectric materials.
Educate graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who will become leading members of the research community with a minimal learning curve.
Develop unique measurement, modeling, and characterization infrastructure to support the industry.

CDP faculty are international leaders and have unique capabilities to drive research innovations for next-generation dielectric and piezoelectric materials and devices. CDP engages companies across the supply chain, those that manufacture dielectric and piezoelectric materials, component manufacturers, and end users.

Universities

North Carolina State University
Pennsylvania State University

View Center Website

Center Personnel

Professor Gregory Parsons
NCSU Site Director
+1 919 515 7553
gnp@ncsu.edu

Bernadine Premachandra
NCSU Program Associate
+1 919 515 2867
bcpremac@ncsu.edu

Professor Susan Trolier-McKinstry
PSU Site Director
+1 814 865 7173
set1@psu.edu

Melissa Bailey
Administrative Assistant
+1 814 865 2896
mic3@psu.edu

Research Focus

Innovations in the dielectric and piezoelectric industrial sectors often arise from research advances in materials chemistry, synthesis, and manufacturing that enable the creation of new materials and improved device functionality. To support innovations, CDP has organized its research portfolio into five technical topics, which are unified by a common theme of harnessing, controlling and optimizing polarization phenomena for energy storage, transduction, and management. Those five topic areas in which CDP researches are:

Capacitors for extreme environments, to develop new dielectrics capable of handling increased voltages and operation temperatures in application areas such as automotive, power electronics, and aerospace/defense systems.
Miniaturized complementary metal oxide semiconductor-compatible piezoelectrics actuators, high-quality factor resonators, and lead-free piezoelectric ceramics that can handle aggressive driving conditions.
High-energy density capacitors for electric vehicles and wearable electronics.
Dielectrics for low-temperature and flexible substrates for foldable and stretchable electronics.
Nonlinear and high-frequency dielectrics for 5G communications, including quantitative high-frequency dielectric characterization, new manufacturing technologies, temperature-stable high-quality factor dielectrics at high frequencies, and high-reliability integrated tunable capacitors.

The research is supported by unique expertise and facilities in five cross-cutting research areas:

Computational modeling.
Life cycle analysis.
Nanoscale characterization.
Property and reliability characterization.
Synthesis and processing science.

Awards

1841453

Phase II IUCRC at The Pennsylvania State University: Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics: CDP

The Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics (CDP) is a joint industry/university cooperative research center (IUCRC) between North Carolina State University (NCSU) and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), with an international affiliate site at The University of Sheffield. Dielectric and piezoelectric materials, which can transduce and store energy, are ubiquitous in modern electronics that underpin most transportation, communication, defense and medical technologies. The goals of the CDP are to: 1. Improve the fundamental understanding of dielectric and piezoelectric materials and their device integration; 2. Discover transformative dielectric and piezoelectric materials that support innovative technology advancements and transfer this technology to support new products and processes; 3. Educate students and postdoctoral scholars to become leaders in the research community and create long-term technical impact; 4. Develop unique measurement, characterization, and modeling infrastructure to support industry; 5. Catalyze strategic coupling with other organizations to expand scientific impact and technology transfer; 6. Become the internationally recognized center of excellence in the science, technology, and integration of capacitive and piezoelectric materials. At each step, CDP faculty work closely with industry and national laboratory members to advance the state-of-the-art in dielectric and piezoelectric materials.

CDP research will develop new materials, new metrology methods, new processing methods, and new scientific understanding of dielectric and piezoelectric materials, including lifecycle analysis. The research portfolio will include projects on: 1. Capacitors for extreme environments to address the need for increased voltages and operation temperatures in application areas such as automotive, power electronics, and aerospace/defense systems. Research topics include, for example, understanding the reliability of high voltage and high temperature capacitors. 2. Piezoelectric materials used in ultrasound and precision actuation applications, and will include research on the factors controlling the electrical and electromechanical reliability of piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems. 3. High energy density capacitors for electric vehicles and wearable electronics, including research on thin glass dielectrics. 4. Dielectrics for low-temperature and flexible substrates for foldable and stretchable electronics, including understanding both the fundamental mechanisms that drive cold sintering, as well as the range of systems to which this processing technique can be applied.. 5. Non-linear and high frequency dielectrics for 5G communications, including new measurement methods for low loss high frequency materials.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >

1841466

Phase II IUCRC at North Carolina State University: Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics

The Center for Dielectrics and Piezoelectrics (CDP) is a joint industry/university cooperative research center (IUCRC) between North Carolina State University (NCSU) and the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), with an international affiliate site at The University of Sheffield. Dielectric and piezoelectric materials, which can transduce and store energy, are ubiquitous in modern electronics that underpin most transportation, communication, defense and medical technologies. The goals of the CDP are to: 1. Improve the fundamental understanding of dielectric and piezoelectric materials and their device integration; 2. Discover transformative dielectric and piezoelectric materials that support innovative technology advancements and transfer this technology to support new products and processes; 3. Educate students and postdoctoral scholars to become leaders in the research community and create long-term technical impact; 4. Develop unique measurement, characterization, and modeling infrastructure to support the industry; 5. Catalyze strategic coupling with other organizations to expand scientific impact and technology transfer; 6. Become the internationally recognized center of excellence in the science, technology, and integration of capacitive and piezoelectric materials. At each step, CDP faculty work closely with industry and national laboratory members to advance the state-of-the-art in dielectric and piezoelectric materials.

CDP research develops new materials, new metrology methods, new processing methods, and new scientific understanding of dielectric and piezoelectric materials, including lifecycle analysis. The research portfolio includes projects on: 1. Capacitors for extreme environments to address the need for increased voltages and operation temperatures in application areas such as automotive, power electronics, and aerospace/defense systems; exemplary research topics include quantification of dielectric degradation kinetics in the presence of humidity. 2. Piezoelectric materials used in ultrasound and precision actuation applications, including research on the role of inhomogeneous stresses on cracking and failure in multilayer piezoelectric devices 3. High energy density capacitors for electric vehicles and wearable electronics, including research on novel molecular-layer deposition techniques for producing high-surface-area capacitors. 4. Dielectrics for low-temperature and flexible substrates for foldable and stretchable electronics, including novel approaches for printed dielectric devices. 5. Non-linear and high frequency dielectrics for 5G communications, including high-reliability integrated tunable capacitors.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >

Member Organizations

IUCRC affiliated member organizations are displayed as submitted by the Center. Non-federal organizations are not selected, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the Center author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.