Dr David Hall

David Hall graduated in Physics from the University of Leeds in 1984. Subsequently, he obtained his PhD in Ceramics in 1987 and carried out postdoctoral research on electroceramics in Leeds until his appointment as Lecturer in Materials Science (Ceramics) at the University of Manchester in 1989. His research activities are mostly concerned with ferroelectric ceramics, which are widely used in piezoelectric devices e.g. electromechanical actuators and acoustic sources. He has developed methods for the characterisation and modelling of nonlinear behaviour and losses in ferroelectric materials, through collaboration with NPL and with companies such as Morgan Electroceramics and Xaar Ltd.

Current projects are concerned with the fundamental mechanisms responsible for nonlinearity and hysteresis in ferroelectric ceramics and the development of novel piezoelectric materials. The research makes use of the extensive 'in-house' materials processing and characterisation equipment in Manchester as well as large-scale external facilities such as ISIS (neutron diffraction) and ESRF (high energy x-ray diffraction).

• High energy XRD and neutron diffraction studies of ferroelectric ceramics.
• Micromechanical modelling of domain switching in ferroelectrics.
• Ferroelastic domain switching and ferroelectric-antiferroelectric phase transformations in rhombohedral PZT ceramics.
• High temperature piezoelectric ceramics.
• Lead-free piezoelectric ceramics.

• D.A. Hall, A. Steuwer, B. Cherdhirunkorn, P.J. Withers and T. Mori, "Micromechanics of residual stress and texture development due to poling in polycrystalline ferroelectric ceramics", J. Mech. Phys. Solids 53, 249-260 (2005).
• D.A. Hall, A. Steuwer, B. Cherdhirunkorn, T. Mori and P.J. Withers, "A high energy synchrotron X-ray study of crystallographic texture and lattice strain in soft lead zirconate titanate ceramics", J. Appl. Phys. 96, 4245-4252 (2004).
• B. Cherdhirunkorn and D.A. Hall, "The Effect of Sintering Processes on the Properties of Mn-F Doped PZT Ceramics", Integrated Ferroelectrics 62, 61-67 (2004).
• D.A. Hall, "Nonlinearity in Piezoelectric Ceramics", J. Mat. Sci. 36, 4575-4601 (2001).
• D.A. Hall, R. Stevens and B. El-Jazairi, "The effect of retarders on the microstructure and mechanical properties of magnesia phosphate cement (MPC) mortar", Cem. Concr. Res. 31, 455-465 (2001).