Research & ServicesWe aim to support industry with measurements of piezoelectric, thermoelectric, dielectric and magnetic material properties and maintain our competitive advantage through active involvement in cutting-edge research.
- Caloric materials offer a promising and novel route to providing high efficiency and environmentally-friendly solid-state refrigeration solutions for air conditioning and other heat pumping applications.
- The reputation of NPL's expertise in functional materials has been built up through years of research and lies in the characterisation of materials that have some extra function apart from their obvious mechanical or chemical properties.
- Details of testing and reference materials available for DC measurements of magnetically soft materials.
- RF & Microwave Dielectric Research; Modelling of Electromagnetic Field Interactions with Materials and Metamaterials; and Dielectric Measurement Services.
- Functional materials are widely used for sensing, actuation and energy storage and generation and electronic devices.
- The measurement of the properties of magnetic materials can be made on a wide range of material types and geometries and for a large number of technologically important parameters.
- The remanence, coercivity, maximum energy product and demagnetisation curve of a range of magnetically hard materials can be determined in accordance with IEC 60404 Part 3: 1995.
- The continuous research and development into new materials and structures has made possible the massive technological progress in digital consumer electronics, computing power and data storage capacities.
- Nanoscale ferroelectrics offer the potential for improved devices such as a digital memory medium.
- Nanometrology is widely recognised as being the missing key part to be able to commercialise thermoelectric materials more widely.
- Energy harvesting is used to describe the scavenging of ambient energy in the environment that would otherwise be wasted.