This course is an introduction to functional materials including a selection of basic fundamental principles, processing techniques, properties and applications. The range of materials covered are: conductors (metallic, ionic, superconducting and semiconducting), magnetic materials (hard, soft and recording media), and dielectric materials (insulators, piezoelectric and ferroelectric).
It will provide an introduction to functional materials and properties including the concept of intrinsic and extrinsic properties; describe the periodic table, atomic structure, types of bonding and how electronic structure influences functional properties of materials (eg resistivity/conductivity), basic crystal structures; introduce basic superconducting behaviour, processing and applications of superconducting (eg MRI); discuss semiconducting materials, including a simple model of energy levels and a range of applications (eg solar cells); describe hard and soft magnetic materials: properties, processing and applications (eg NdFeB magnets for bioMEMS), methods of data recording including magnetic, CD, CDR/W and DVD; describe dielectric materials: properties, electrostrictives, ferroelectrics and applications (eg capacitors), optical properties and optical fibres.