Susan Trolier-McKinstry | Materials Science and Engineering at Penn State

Susan Trolier-McKinstry

Susan Trolier-McKinstry
Professor of Ceramic Science and Engineering;
Director, W. M. Keck Smart Materials
Integration Laboratory
N-227 Millennium Science Complex
(814) 863-8348
STMcKinstry@psu.edu
W.M. Keck Smart Materials Integration Laboratory

Biographical Sketch:

Susan Trolier-McKinstry is a professor of ceramic science and engineering at the Pennsylvania State University, where she also serves as the director of the W. M. Keck Smart Materials Integration Laboratory. She obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees in Ceramic Science and Engineering in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Ceramic Science in 1992, all from Penn State. On graduation she joined the faculty there. She has held visiting appointments at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory in Kokubunji, Tokyo, the Army Research Laboratory at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland. Her main research interests include dielectric and piezoelectric thin films, the development of texture in bulk ceramic piezoelectrics, and spectroscopic ellipsometry. She has co-authored >180 papers in these areas, and has several patents.

Research Interests:

Ferroelectric Materials
Piezoelectric and dielectric films
Microelectromechanical systems
Spectroscopic ellipsometry
Templated grain growth

Areas of Research:

Professor Trolier-McKinstry’s research interests are centered around structure-processing-property relationships in electroceramics. This includes work on dielectric and piezoelectric thin films, texture development in piezoelectric ceramics, and spectroscopic ellipsometry.
In the piezoelectric films area, Prof. Trolier-McKinstry is developing sensors and actuators that are compatible with CMOS electronics (and hence low driving voltages). Her group has approached this by trying to maximize the figure of merit for the material response through control of composition, crystallographic orientation, grain size, and composite connectivity. The work includes fundamental studies on the factors that control domain wall contributions to the properties and the role of octahedral tilt in influencing response. More applied research ranges from damage-free patterning approaches of complex oxides, to fabrication of piezoelectric microelectromechanical systems, including accelerometers, pumps, switches, adaptive optics components, and ultrasound systems with close-coupled electronics. They are also working on preparing high strain actuator films at low processing temperatures (< 400oC) via pulsed laser crystallization.
Bulk and thin film dielectrics are of interest for on and off-chip decoupling capacitors, as well as tunable components. Prof. Trolier-McKinstry’s group emphasizes the development of a wide range of dielectrics covering the permittivity range from 30 to 3000. Recent work has focused on using Rayleigh and Preisach methods to quantify the properties over a wide range of ac and dc electric fields. The same tools are also being used to study reliability and the relative roles of various defect types in controlling the properties.
Texture development can be used to improve electromechanical response in bulk piezoelectrics. Joint programs with Prof. Messing have demonstrated that templated grain growth can be utilized to achieve textured ceramics with properties intermediate between those of randomly axed ceramics and single crystals.

Technology Impacted By Research:

Technologies affected by her research include on and off-chip decoupling capacitors, tunable filters and antennae, miniaturized sensors, micromachined analytical instrumentation, high frequency biomedical ultrasound, and piezoelectric actuators.

Journal Articles and Publications:

P. Bintachitt, S. Jesse, D. Damjanovic, Y. Han, I. M. Reaney, S. Trolier-McKinstry, and S. V. Kalinin, “Collective Dynamics Underpins Rayleigh Behavior in Disordered Polycrystalline Ferroelectrics,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 107 (16) 7219-7224 (2010).
I. Fujii, M. Ugorek, Y. Han, and S. Trolier-McKinstry, “Effect of Oxygen Partial Pressure during Firing on the High AC Field Response of BaTiO3 Dielectrics,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 93 (4) 1081-1088 (2010).
P. Muralt, R. G. Polcawich, and S. Trolier-McKinstry, “Piezoelectric Thin Films for Sensors, Actuators, and Energy Harvesting,” MRS Bull. 34 (9), 658-664 (2009).
R. G. Polcawich, J. S. Pulskamp, D. Judy, P. Ranade, S. Trolier-McKinstry, M. Dubey, “Surface Micromachined Microelectromechanical Ohmic Series Switch Using Thin-Film Piezoelectric Actuators,” IEEE T-MTT 55 (12) 2642 – 2654 (2007).
5. H. Nagata, S. W. Ko, E. Hong, C. A. Randall, S. Trolier-McKinstry, P. Pinceloup, D. Skamser, M. Randall, and A. Tajuddin, “Micro-contact Printed BaTiO3 and LaNiO3 Thin Films for Capacitors,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 89 (9) 2816 - 21 (2006).