6/12/2014
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MatSE graduate students Anoop Rama Damodaran and Canan Dagdeviren were awarded MRS Silver Graduate Student Awards for their presentations at the 2014 Materials Research Society (MRS) Spring Meeting in San Francisco.
Through the Graduate Student Awards, the MRS recognizes students of exceptional ability who show promise for future substantial achievement in materials research. The awards are intended to honor and encourage graduate students whose academic achievements and current materials research display a high order of excellence and distinction.
Anoop Rama Damodaran, Ph.D. student in the Lane Martin research group, presented his research “Enhancement of Ferroelectric Curie Temperature in BaTiO3 Films via Strain-Induced Defect-Dipole Alignment.”
“My work suggests that epitaxial strain can be used to control the ordering of defect structures inducing deterministic additional out-of-plane strains that greatly enhance the Curie temperature,” Damodaran said. “This is especially exciting since this is achieved without any degradation of the polarization or leakage properties."
This combined control of epitaxial strain and engineered defect-structures to control ferroelectricity in materials opens up a new paradigm in strain control of materials and properties. The paper regarding Damodaran’s recent work on the topic is under review at Advanced Materials.
Canan Dagdeviren, Ph.D. student in the John Rogers group, presented her research, “Conformal, Multilayer Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting and Storage from the Motion of Heart, Lung and Diaphragm with Capacity to Operate a Cardiac Pacemaker.”
“I developed a new class of biocompatible piezoelectric mechanical energy harvesters that are soft and flexible, with low bending stiffness, allowing them to conform to and laminate on the heart as well as on other soft tissues,” Dagdeviren explained. “These devices are first of its kind polymer-based flexible nano-generators that convert mechanical energy from internal organ movements into an electric energy to power medical devices.”
The technology could extend the battery life of implanted medical devices or even eliminate the need of battery replacement that altogether would spare patients from repeated operations and the risk of surgical complications. Dagdeviren received the 2014 Illinois Innovation Prize for her work.
Damodaran and Dagdeviren both defended their Ph.D. on June 6. Damodaran will continue with the Martin group as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. Dagdeviren plans to join the Robert Langer research group at MIT as a postdoctoral researcher.