About the Department

The Department of Functional Materials was established as a new research department within the Condensed Matter Division of the Institute of Physics of the ASCR in January 2009. It brought together researchers working in the field of functional engineering materials and nanostructured diamond thin films. The department  has grown to contain 4 research groups.in 2016.

The shared idea of the department research concerns active functionality imprinted to the solids on the structural level.

The department research currently focusses:

• martensitically transforming shape memory alloys in various forms from bulk  to thin filaments and thin films and development of their engineering applications
• multiferroic materials combining ferromagnetism with martensitic transformationss.
• preparation, characterization, and functionalization of carbon materials.in different forms covering  nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) coatings, nanodiamond particles (NDP) and monocrystalline diamonds (SCD) and graphene based layers

Research groups:

• Functional materials and composites / L. Heller
• Magnetic Shape Memory and Magnetocaloric Materials / O. Heczko
• Materials for Nanosystems and Biointerfaces / V. Mortet
• Physical Properties of Biomaterials / I. Kratochvilova

FUNBIO-SAFMAT laboratory / J.Kopecek  provides research services in the area of characterization of material surfaces (Optical microscopy,SEM,AFM)

Special Topics:

• Localized deformation of NiTi in tension
• Moving interfaces in solids
• RoundRobin SMA Modeling

Staff

Publications 

Patents

Projects

Students

Current research topics

Key experimental facilities