This presentation will tell a 20-year long story of how a curiosity-driven, ferroelectric materials research topic developed into a 2 million dollar professional association business, manufacturing industrial ultrasound transducers based on modified BiFeO3 piezoelectric ceramics for use under extreme conditions (above 500 °C). On that journey, from undergraduate project through to industrial manufacturing, we discovered some interesting materials science, we learnt how to process materials on the edge of instability, and we overcame our academic sensitivities in order to finance a spin-out company and followed some unexpected paths to gain moderate commercial success. The talk aims to provide a contemporary and perhaps idiosyncratic view of both the science and business of piezoelectric materials.
Dose assessment: from conceptual model to environmental radioactivity monitoring
Radionuclides are discharged into the environment from a variety of nuclear and radiation facilities, potentially causing harmful effects on human health and the environment. If discharges are likely to result in adverse radiological effects, they must be evaluated in...
