Through-Ice Acoustic Communication for Ocean Worlds Exploration.

Subsurface exploration of ice-covered planets and moons presents communications challenges because of the need to communicate through kilometers of ice. The objective of this task is to develop the capability to wirelessly communicate through kilometers of ice and thus complement the potentially failure-prone tethers deployed behind an ice-penetrating probe on Ocean Worlds. In this paper, the preliminary work on the development of wireless deep-ice communication is presented and discussed.

Direct Laser 3D Printing of Refractory Materials.

Direct laser 3D printing of refractory materials such as silicon carbide (SiC), tungsten (W), and tantalum hafnium carbide (TaHfC) have been systematically investigated. High relative density has been achieved for SiC, SiC/Al, W, and W/TaHfC. High density SiC structures and W thin wall were also fabricated.

Piezoelectric energy harvesting in internal fluid flow.

We consider piezoelectric flow energy harvesting in an internal flow environment with the ultimate goal powering systems such as sensors in deep oil well applications. Fluid motion is coupled to structural vibration via a cantilever beam placed in a converging-diverging flow channel. Two designs were considered for the electromechanical coupling: first; the cantilever itself is a piezoelectric bimorph; second; the cantilever is mounted on a pair of flextensional actuators.

High temperature, high power piezoelectric composite transducers.

Piezoelectric composites are a class of functional materials consisting of piezoelectric active materials and non-piezoelectric passive polymers, mechanically attached together to form different connectivities. These composites have several advantages compared to conventional piezoelectric ceramics and polymers, including improved electromechanical properties, mechanical flexibility and the ability to tailor properties by using several different connectivity patterns. These advantages have led to the improvement of overall transducer performance, such as transducer sensitivity and bandwidth, resulting in rapid implementation of piezoelectric composites in medical imaging ultrasounds and other acoustic transducers.

1-3 piezoelectric composites for high temperature transducer applications.

High temperature Pb(Zr,Ti)O /epoxy 1-3 composites were fabricated using the dice and fill method. The epoxy filler was modified with glass spheres in order to improve the thermal reliability of the composites at elevated temperatures. Temperature dependent dielectric and electromechanical properties of the composites were measured after aging at 250°C with different dwelling times.

Electroacoustic response of 1-3 piezocomposite transducers for high power applications.

The electroacoustic performance of 1-3 piezoelectric composite transducers with low loss polymer filler was studied and compared to monolithic Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3) (PZT) piezoelectric transducers. The 1-3 composite transducers exhibited significantly high electromechanical coupling factor (k(t) ∼ 0.64) when compared to monolithic counterparts (k(t) ∼ 0.

Design of low-loss 1-3 piezoelectric composites for high-power transducer applications.

Lead zirconate titanate (PZT)/polymer 1-3 composites have improved electromechanical properties compared with monolithic counterparts, but possess a low mechanical quality factor, limiting their use in high-power transducer applications. The goal of this work was to improve the mechanical quality factor of 1-3 PZT/polymer composites by optimizing the polymer materials. Theoretical analysis and modeling were performed for optimum composite design and various polymers were prepared and characterized.

Characterization of piezoelectric ceramics and 1-3 composites for high power transducers.

The high power characteristics of various piezoelectric ceramics and 1-3 composites were investigated. In contrast to "hard" Pb(Zr,Ti)O(3), modified (Bi(0.5)Na(0.

Thickness Dependent Properties of Relaxor-PbTiO(3) Ferroelectrics for Ultrasonic Transducers.

The electrical properties of Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PMN-PT) based polycrystalline ceramics and single crystals were investigated as a function of scale ranging from 500 microns to 30 microns. Fine-grained PMN-PT ceramics exhibited comparable dielectric and piezoelectric properties to their coarse-grained counterpart in the low frequency range (<10 MHz), but offered greater mechanical strength and improved property stability with decreasing thickness, corresponding to higher operating frequencies (>40 MHz). For PMN-PT single crystals, however, the dielectric and electromechanical properties degraded with decreasing thickness, while ternary Pb(In(1/2)Nb(1/2))O(3)-Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PIN-PMN-PT) exhibited minimal size dependent behavior.

Influence of Domain Size on the Scaling Effects in Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-PbTiO3 Ferroelectric Crystals.

The property degradation observed in thin Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PMN-PT) crystals is believed to relate to large domains and subsequent clamping induced by surface-boundary. In this work, the properties were investigated as function of domain size, using controlled poling. The degraded piezoelectric and dielectric properties of thin PMN-PT were found to increase significantly, by decreasing domain size.

Recent Developments on High Curie Temperature PIN-PMN-PT Ferroelectric Crystals.

Pb(In(0.5)Nb(0.5))O(3)-Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PIN-PMN-PT) ferroelectric crystals attracted extensive attentions in last couple years, due to their higher usage temperatures range (> 30°C) and coercive fields (~5kV/cm), meanwhile maintaining similar electromechanical couplings (k(33)> 90%) and piezoelectric coefficients (d(33)~1500pC/N), when compared to their binary counterpart Pb(Mg(1/3)Nb(2/3))O(3)-PbTiO(3).

Scaling effects of relaxor-PbTiO(3) crystals and composites for high frequency ultrasound.

The dielectric and piezoelectric properties of Pb(Mg(13)Nb(23))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PMN-PT) and Pb(In(12)Nb(12))O(3)-Pb(Mg(13)Nb(23))O(3)-PbTiO(3) (PIN-PMN-PT) ferroelectric single crystals were investigated as a function of thicknessscale in monolithic and piezoelectricpolymer 1-3 composites. For the case of PMN-PT single crystals, the dielectric (epsilon33Tepsilon0) and electromechanical properties (k(33)) were found to significantly decrease with decreasing thickness (500-40 mum), while minimal thickness dependency was observed for PIN-PMN-PT single crystals. Temperature dependent dielectric behavior of the crystals suggested that the observed thickness dependence in PMN-PT was strongly related to their relatively large domain size (>10-20 mum).

Characterization of hard piezoelectric lead-free ceramics.

K4CuNb8O23 doped K(0.45)Na(0.55)NbO3(KNNKCN) ferroelectric ceramics were found to exhibit asymmetrical polarization hysteresis loops, related to the development of an internal bias field.