The Smart Ferroic Materials Research Center is hosting a kick-off event on the campus of the U of A Nov.11-13. The center's purpose is to build a bridge with France's top engineering school, CentraleSupélec, and one of the world's leading universities in STEM, University Paris-Saclay.

During the kick-off, we will welcome several French faculty and administrators to develop joint research projects and new educational, multicultural programs that will position the U of A, CentraleSupélec and University Paris-Saclay as world leaders in the field of ferroic materials and provide unique opportunities for students at the U of A to gain research experience abroad.

Research at the Smart Ferroic Materials Center will focus on developing novel ferroic materials, whose extreme sensitivity to electric and magnetic fields endows them with exceptional properties fit for computing, health, environment or defense applications. Faculty across multiple departments (Physics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Mechanical Engineering) will team up with faculty from CentraleSupélec and University Paris-Saclay to discover new ferroic materials enabling faster and more energy-efficient computing, mimicking brain-like functions, water cleaning or ultrafast THz and optical sensing.

The Smart Ferroic Materials Center has received support from the Division of Science of the French embassy in the United States as well as from the Transatlantic Mobility Program from the foundation Albertine. It is committed to building a strong bridge that will benefit students, research and economic growth in Arkansas and France. A recent grant from the Office of Basic Science at the Department of Energy further supports the mission of the Smart Ferroic Materials Center in developing the electronic materials of tomorrow through a collaborative and multicultural research approach.

For further information, feel free to contact us at sfmc@uark.edu.