Functional Materials and Devices

By understanding how functional materials form and behave, we research different ways of processing them to influence their properties and how they can be applied.

Capacitors with mobile phone motherboard

Our functional materials and devices research is divided into three sub-themes:


Functional Ceramics

Ceramics have always been a major part of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering's research portfolio. Our research covers functional ceramics, as well as the more traditional areas of refractories and structural ceramics. Ferroelectrics and piezoelectrics are used in applications such as memories, sensors and transducers. Our research focuses on the discovery of new ferroelectrics and on understanding their fundamental crystal chemistry.

Case Study: A sweet approach to battery materials manufacturing

Key contacts for Functional Ceramics Research


Advanced Magnetic Materials & Devices

Magnetics research is dedicated to the growth, characterisation, modelling and application of magnetic materials. Subtle but crucial interactions that occur on the nanometre scale are investigated by both experiment and micromagnetic modelling, and have potential exploitation in soft and hard magnetic materials, sensors and actuators, data storage and logic.

Key contacts for Advanced Magnetic Materials & Devices Research


Liquid Crystals

Liquid crystal technology has transformed our daily lives, with the LCD industry currently being worth £300bn per year worldwide. Research includes the study of structure and phase behaviour of liquid crystalline and supramolecular polymeric, oligomeric and low molecular systems.

Key contacts for Liquid Crystals Research

Top in the Russell Group

We are the top-ranked Russell Group university for Graduate Prospects in Materials Science and Engineering. (The Times Good University Guide 2020)

Flagship institutes

The University’s four flagship institutes bring together our key strengths to tackle global issues, turning interdisciplinary and translational research into real-world solutions.