Betul Akkopru-Akgun, Ph.D., is an assistant research professor at the Materials Research Institute at Penn State. She received her doctoral and master of science degrees in materials science and engineering at Penn State and a second master of science degree in metallurgical and materials engineering at the Middle East Technical University.
Akkopru-Akgun’s research focuses on developing physical models that reveal how defects, composition, interfaces, moisture, and strain collectively impact charge transport and the lifetime of ferroelectric films. Her work has significantly contributed to the development of ferroelectric film-based piezoMEMS with improved and stable piezoelectric responses over time. Notably, at least one major piezoMEMS foundry has already implemented her findings in commercial production, achieving a several-fold increase in the lifetime of their actuators. Additionally, many leading industry players in this field have leveraged her results to enhance the performance properties of their piezoMEMS devices. Her current research aims to design and fabricate advanced piezoelectric materials in thin-film, bulk ceramic, and single-crystal forms for enhanced dielectric, ferroelectric, mechanical, optical, and biological properties.
She has received the Robert E. Newnham Award for Research Excellence and the Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Materials Research Award. Akkopru-Akgun serves as a review editor on the editorial board of Piezoelectric Materials, a specialty section of Frontiers in Electronic Materials. Additionally, she serves as a voting member of the Ferroelectrics Standing Committee (FerroCom) and as the education and tutorial chair within the IEEE Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control Society (IEEE-UFFC Society). She actively contributes to educational initiatives in ferroelectrics.
- Voting Member of the Ferroelectrics Standing Committee (FerroCom) of the IEEE UFFC Society
- Tutorials and Education Chair for Ferroelectrics, IEEE UFFC Society
- Organizing Committee, Women in Engineering Chair, 2025 IEEE International Symposium on Applications of Ferroelectrics
- Organizing Committee, Materials Research Meeting 2025, Japan
Akkopru-Akgun’s research focuses on understanding the relationships between composition, structure, defects, and interfaces, and how these factors impact key performance properties, including aging, retention, fatigue, imprint, and electrical reliability of dielectric, piezoelectric, and ferroelectric materials. By studying and engineering these aspects, she has worked on developing ferroelectric film-based piezoMEMS with improved piezoelectric responses that demonstrate stability over time.
Next Generation Novel Ferroelectrics for Memory Applications: She investigates the role of interfacial chemistry and boundary conditions on switching kinetics and the mechanisms underlying domain nucleation and growth in next-generation ferroelectric materials, including doped AlN films, Hf1-xZrxO2, and Zn1-xMgxO films for memory applications. These materials exhibit exceptional thermal stability, robust ferroelectric performance at nanoscale thicknesses, large remanent polarization, and compatibility with CMOS processing. This makes them ideal candidates for 3D integrated ferroelectric architectures, which are essential for addressing the energy limitations of the Von Neumann computing model. Despite recent advancements, key challenges remain for commercialization. These include elucidating switching kinetics and domain nucleation/growth mechanisms to enhance performance, as well as identifying enabling and limiting defects and understanding their emergence during deposition and patterning processes. To address these challenges, she investigates defects, domain walls, interfaces, and intermediate switching structures across multiple length scales. Her work focuses on unraveling correlation between defect dynamics, coercive fields, leakage currents, and endurance characteristics.
Hybrid Perovskite Structures for Targeted Cancer Therapy: Her research also focuses on designing and fabricating hybrid perovskite structures that integrate piezocatalytic, pyrocatalytic, and photocatalytic properties for efficient and precise generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). By harvesting light, heat, and mechanical stimuli, these materials aim to enable targeted cancer cell therapy with enhanced precision, minimal invasiveness, and reduced adverse side effects.
Development Piezoelectric Ceramics for Ultrasonic Transducers: She is interested in developing high-performance textured piezoceramics for medical transducer designs with enhanced piezoelectric coefficients, electromechanical coupling coefficients, and mechanical quality factors. Textured ceramics enable domain engineering at the grain level, mimicking single-crystal behavior through processes like templated grain growth. Her work advances the fundamental understanding of texture evolution by exploring template–matrix interactions, grain growth dynamics, and the influence of processing conditions on texture quality.
- Skidmore C., Hayden J., Calderon S., Sucaeva A., Spurling J., Akkopru-Akgun B., Casamento J., Trolier-McKinstry S., Gopalan V., Dickey E., Kelley K., and Maria J-P., “Proximity ferroelectricity in aluminum nitride heterostructures,” Nature Materials, accepted (2024).
- He F., Zhu W., Hayden J., Casamento J., Tran Q., Kang K., Song Y., Akkopru-Akgun B., Yang J.I., Tipsawat P., Brennecka G., Choi S., Jackson T.N., Maria J-P. and Trolier-McKinstry S., “Frequency dependence of wake-up and fatigue characteristics in ferroelectric Al0.93B0.07N thin films”, Acta Materialia, 266, 119678 (2024).
- Jacques L., Ryu G., Goodling D., Bachu S., Taheri R., Yousefian P., Shetty S., Akkopru-Akgun B. Randall C., Alem N., Maria J-P., Trolier-McKinstry S., “Wake up and Retention in Zinc Magnesium Oxide Ferroelectric Films”, J. Appl. Phys. 133, 224102 (2023).
- Trolier-McKinstry S., Zhu W., Akkopru-Akgun B., He F., Ko S.W, Fragkiadakis C., Mardilovich P., “Reliability of piezoelectrical films for MEMS”, Jap. J. Appl. Phys. 62, SM0802 (2023).
- Koh D., Ko S.W., Yang J.I., Akkopru-Akgun B., Trolier-McKinstry S., “Effect of Mg-doping and Fe-doping in lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thin films on electrical reliability,” J. Appl. Phys. 132, 174101 (2022).
- Akkopru-Akgun B., Bayer T., Tsuji K., Randall C.A, Lanagan M.T., Trolier-McKinstry S., “The influence of Mn doping on the leakage current mechanisms and resistance degradation behavior in lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films,” Acta Materialia, 208, 116680-1-8 (2021).
- Zhu W., Akkopru-Akgun B., Yang JI., Fragkiadakis C., Wang K., Ko SW., Madilovich P., Trolier-McKinstry S., “Influence of graded doping on the long-term reliability of Nb-doped lead zirconate titanate films,” Acta Materialia. 219, 117251-1-8 (2021).
- Akkopru-Akgun B., Zhu W., Randall CA., Lanagan MT., Trolier-McKinstry S., “Polarity dependent DC resistance degradation and electrical breakdown in Nb doped PZT films,” APL Materials 7 (12), 120901-1-9 (2019).
- Akkopru-Akgun B., Trolier-McKinstry S., Lanagan M.T., “MnO2 thin film electrodes for enhanced reliability of thin glass capacitors,” J. Am. Ceram. Soc., 98, 3270-3279 (2015).
- Akkopru Akgun B., Wren A., Durucan C., Towler M.R., Mellott N.P., “Sol-gel derived silver-incorporated titania thin films on glass: bactericidal and photocatalytic activity,” J. Sol-Gel Sci. Techn., 59, 228-238 (2011).
- Ferroelectrics Young Investigator Star Series, an invited talk, “Electromechanical reliability in lead zirconate titanate (PZT) films”.
- The Rustum and Della Roy Innovation in Material Research Award in 2019, which is designed to honor interdisciplinary materials research at Penn State which yields innovative and unexpected results.
- Robert E. Newnham Award for Research Excellence, Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State University, April 24, 2019.
- Research Travel Award, Materials Science and Engineering, Penn State University
- Student Poster Award in IEEE International Symposium on Applications of Ferroelectric
- Turkish Scientific and Technical Research Institution, Graduate Student Fellowship.
- Best Poster Award, Somer Symposium Series I, Middle East Technical University