Magnetic spiral structures can exhibit ferroelectric moments as recently demonstrated in various multiferroic materials. In such case the helicity of the magnetic spiral is directly correlated with the direction of the ferroelectric moment and measurement of the helicity of magnetic structures is of current interest. We used soft x-ray resonant diffraction with circular polarized incident radia...

Both relaxor ferroelectric and antiferroelectric materials can individually demonstrate large electrocaloric effects (ECE). However, in order to further enhance the ECE it is crucial to find a material system, which can exhibit simultaneously both relaxor ferroelectric and antiferroelectric properties, or easily convert from one into another in terms of the compositional tailoring. Here we repo...

Ferroelectric solids, especially ferroelectric perovskites, are widely used as sensors, actuators, filters, memory devices, and optical components. While these have traditionally been treated as insulators, they are in reality wide-band-gap semiconductors. This semiconducting behavior affects the microstructures or domain patterns of the ferroelectric material and the interaction of ferroelectr...

The pressure- and temperature-dependent phase transitions in the ferroelectric material rubidium hydrogen sulfate (RbHSO4) are investigated by a combination of neutron Laue diffraction and high-pressure X-ray diffraction. The observation of disordered O-atom positions in the hydrogen sulfate anions is in agreement with previous spectroscopic measurements in the literature. Contrary to the mecha...

Simulation of ferroelectric hysteresis allows the analysis of nonvolatile memory cells which are based on ferroelectric materials. We give an overview of our algorithm for the calculation of e ects caused by eld rotation. Implementation of this algorithm into a device simulator reveals interesting numerical aspects. One of these is that the locus curves of the hysteresis are nonsymmetric, thus ...

We report the first direct evidence that the morphotropic phase boundary in ferroelectric materials, along with the associated strong piezoelectricity, can be created, destroyed, or even replaced by another morphotropic phase boundary through phase transitions during electrical poling. The real-time evolution of crystal structure and domain morphology during the poling-induced phase transitions...

In many organic electronic devices functionality is achieved by blending two or more materials, typically polymers or molecules, with distinctly different optical or electrical properties in a single film. The local scale morphology of such blends is vital for the device performance. Here, a simple approach to study the full 3D morphology of phase-separated blends, taking advantage of the possi...

Single-phase magnetoelectric multiferroics are ferroelectric materials that display some form of magnetism. In addition, magnetic and ferroelectric order parameters are not independent of one another. Thus, the application of either an electric or magnetic field simultaneously alters both the electrical dipole configuration and the magnetic state of the material. The technological possibilities...