Ceramic thin films
Future technology is clearly thin film technology. (Ceramic) materials with interesting properties (superconductors, CMR, ionic conductors, optical transparent materials) may behave differently when deposited on a substrate.
These thin films can be analysed at “large scale”, where a micron thick superconducting YBCO material has been grown on a stainless steel support through several buffer layers.
Or they can be analysed down to atomic scale as in the second example, where a multilayer of (La-Ca)MnO3 and BaTiO3 are grown periodically on a SrTiO3 substrate. Apart from imaging also the chemical composition can be mapped and eventual chemical mixing can be readily detected (S. Turner et al.).
On these topics EMAT has two running EC projects (7th framework): IFOX (2010-2014), on the importance of interfaces in thin ceramic films and EUROTAPES (2012-2016), a project on industrial production of superconducting tapes.
