Discovery in ferroelectric material reveals unique property, promising application potential
A discovery from a team of physicists and other researchers is breaking new ground in the study of ferroelectricity, a characteristic of certain dielectric materials that are used in high-technology applications. The findings appear today in the journal Nature Materials.
Led in physics theory by Sokrates Pantelides, University Distinguished Professor of Physics and Engineering at Vanderbilt, and in experiments by Nina Balke and Peter Maksymovych of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the team reports an undiscovered property known as a quadruple potential well, which plays a role in the mechanism known as ferroelectric switching – a process specific to ferroelectric materials which describes spontaneous reversible polarization through the application of an electric field, similar to the way atoms in magnets flip poles through the application of an external magnetic field.