Medical technology is rapidly developing to improve diagnosis and medical treatment tools and providing important health benefits. Advances in medical technology rely on further development of sensors, actuators and implants to be used also in vivo. Current devices utilizing piezoelectric/ferroelectric materials are based on non-sustainable lead-containing materials. The use of toxic lead-based materials is challenging both with respect to in vivo applications of the materials and to the life-cycle of devices.
In this project we develop environmentally friendly and biocompatible high-performance piezoelectric materials. The project will thus contribute to meet future challenges with improved health care and new medical technology as well as reduced environmental concerns. The work at SINTEF focuses on RF magnetron sputtering of lead-free oxide piezoelectric thin films onto Si-based wafers.
PIEZOMED is a collaboration between the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (FACET group, coordinator) and SINTEF and is funded by the Research Council of Norway's NANO2021 program (250184).
