Multifunctional Composites
	Overview
	By mechanically coupling various active materials together new properties/functions could be achieved which are otherwise not possible. In general, active materials convert electrical, thermal or magnetic energy into mechanical energy and vice versa. By combining various active materials together it is possible to transduce .between electrical, thermal and magnetic energies. Magnetoelectric magnetometers are an example of such composites resulting from a coupling of magnetostrictive and piezoelectric materials. Such novel composites have only recently been investigated and new applications for such materials are constantly being discovered.

	Current Research Projects
	Theoretical Modelling of Multilayer Magnetoelectric Composites
	Chia-Ming Chang
	Magnetoelectric laminated composites consisting of magnetostrictive and piezoelectric materials are investigated in this research. To satisfy the requirements of high sensitivity, low power consumption, and small size for modern magnetic sensors, the study emphasizes the development of new sensing mechanism of materials and the design of laminated device structure at the MEMS scale. A laminated composite with magnetoelectric effect provides the promise of a high sensitive, self-powered, and small sized sensing system. An interdigitated electrode serves as a poling system and a measuring electrode simultaneously to obtain the best performance in the d33 direction for a piezoelectric material.

	Magnetoelectric Effect in Magnetostrictive Polymer and Piezoelectric Composites
	Nersesse Nersessian
	The magnetoelectric effect is defined as the electric polarization of a material upon application of a magnetic field or inversely the magnetization of a material upon application of an electric field. As such, the magnetoelectric effect provides a transduction method between magnetic and electric field signals. Important applications of such materials are magnetic field sensors and magnetoelectric transducers, with the main advantage being that they require no external power to operate. One class of magnetoelectric materials consists of composites. These are constructed by mechanically-coupling a magnetostrictive phase with a piezoelectric phase into a two-phase material. By using a polymer-bonded Terfenol-D composite for the magnetostrictive phase instead of bulk Terfenol-D, eddy current losses are reduced, leading to higher operational frequencies. This research studies quasi-static magnetoelectric properties dependence on the Terfenol-D volume fraction (Vp) and magnetic bias field (HBias) of magnetoelectric laminates consisting of a PZT-5H ceramic layer sandwiched between two polymer-bonded Terfenol-D composite layers.