A perovskite is any material with a crystal structure following the formula ABX3, which was first discovered as the mineral called perovskite, which consists of calcium titanium oxide (CaTiO3). The mineral was first discovered in the Ural mountains of Russia by Gustav Rose in 1839 and named after Russian mineralogist L. A. Perovski (1792–1856). 'A' and 'B' are two positively charged ions (i.e. cations), often of very different sizes, and X is a negatively charged ion (an anion, frequently oxide) that bonds to both cations. The 'A' atoms are generally larger than the 'B' atoms. The ideal cubic structure has the B cation in 6-fold coordination, surrounded by an octahedron of anions, and the A cation in 12-fold cuboctahedral coordination. Additional perovskite forms may exist where either/both the A and B sites have a configuration of A1x-1A2x and/or B1y-1B2y and the X may deviate from the ideal coordination configuration as ions within the A and B sites undergo changes in their oxidation states.
Strontium titanate is an oxide of strontium and titanium with the chemical formula SrTiO3. At room temperature, it is a centrosymmetric paraelectric material with a perovskite structure. At low temperatures it approaches a ferroelectric phase transition with a very large dielectric constant ~104 but remains paraelectric down to the lowest temperatures measured as a result of quantum fluctuations, making it a quantum paraelectric. It was long thought to be a wholly artificial material, until 1982 when its natural counterpart—discovered in Siberia and named tausonite—was recognised by the IMA. Tausonite remains an extremely rare mineral in nature, occurring as very tiny crystals. Its most important application has been in its synthesized form wherein it is occasionally encountered as a diamond simulant, in precision optics, in varistors, and in advanced ceramics.
Tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) is a magnetoresistive effect that occurs in a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ), which is a component consisting of two ferromagnets separated by a thin insulator. If the insulating layer is thin enough, electrons can tunnel from one ferromagnet into the other. Since this process is forbidden in classical physics, the tunnel magnetoresistance is a strictly quantum mechanical phenomenon, and lies in the study of spintronics.
Lead zirconate titanate, also called lead zirconium titanate and commonly abbreviated as PZT, is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula Pb[ZrxTi1−x]O3(0 ≤ x ≤ 1).. It is a ceramic perovskite material that shows a marked piezoelectric effect, meaning that the compound changes shape when an electric field is applied. It is used in a number of practical applications such as ultrasonic transducers and piezoelectric resonators. It is a white to off-white solid.
Multiferroics are defined as materials that exhibit more than one of the primary ferroic properties in the same phase:
Barium titanate (BTO) is an inorganic compound with chemical formula BaTiO3. Barium titanate appears white as a powder and is transparent when prepared as large crystals. It is a ferroelectric, pyroelectric, and piezoelectric ceramic material that exhibits the photorefractive effect. It is used in capacitors, electromechanical transducers and nonlinear optics.
Karl Alexander Müller was a Swiss physicist and Nobel laureate. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1987 with Georg Bednorz for their work in superconductivity in ceramic materials.
Lanthanum strontium manganite (LSM or LSMO) is an oxide ceramic material with the general formula La1−xSrxMnO3, where x describes the doping level.
Calcium copper titanate (also abbreviated CCTO, for calcium copper titanium oxide) is an inorganic compound with the formula CaCu3Ti4O12. It is noteworthy for its extremely large dielectric constant (effective relative permittivity) of over 10,000 at room temperature.
Distrontium ruthenate, also known as strontium ruthenate, is an oxide of strontium and ruthenium with the chemical formula Sr2RuO4. It was the first reported perovskite superconductor that did not contain copper. Strontium ruthenate is structurally very similar to the high-temperature cuprate superconductors, and in particular, is almost identical to the lanthanum doped superconductor (La, Sr)2CuO4. However, the transition temperature for the superconducting phase transition is 0.93 K (about 1.5 K for the best sample), which is much lower than the corresponding value for cuprates.
Kathryn Ann Moler is an American physicist, and current dean of research at Stanford University. She received her BSc (1988) and Ph.D. (1995) from Stanford University. After working as a visiting scientist at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in 1995, she held a postdoctoral position at Princeton University from 1995 to 1998. She joined the faculty of Stanford University in 1998, and became an Associate in CIFAR's Superconductivity Program in 2000. She became an associate professor at Stanford in 2002 and is currently a professor of applied physics and of Physics at Stanford. She currently works in the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials (GLAM), and is the director of the Center for Probing the Nanoscale (CPN), a National Science Foundation-funded center where Stanford and IBM scientists continue to improve scanning probe methods for measuring, imaging, and controlling nanoscale phenomena. She lists her scientific interests and main areas of research and experimentation as:
The interface between lanthanum aluminate (LaAlO3) and strontium titanate (SrTiO3) is a notable materials interface because it exhibits properties not found in its constituent materials. Individually, LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 are non-magnetic insulators, yet LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces can exhibit electrical metallic conductivity, superconductivity, ferromagnetism, large negative in-plane magnetoresistance, and giant persistent photoconductivity. The study of how these properties emerge at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface is a growing area of research in condensed matter physics.
Lanthanum manganite is an inorganic compound with the formula LaMnO3, often abbreviated as LMO. Lanthanum manganite is formed in the perovskite structure, consisting of oxygen octahedra with a central Mn atom. The cubic perovskite structure is distorted into an orthorhombic structure by a strong Jahn–Teller distortion of the oxygen octahedra.
LSAT is the most common name for the inorganic compound lanthanum aluminate - strontium aluminium tantalate, which has the chemical formula (LaAlO3)0.3(Sr2TaAlO6)0.7 or its less common alternative: (La0.18Sr0.82)(Al0.59Ta0.41)O3. LSAT is a hard, optically transparent oxide of the elements lanthanum, aluminium, strontium and tantalum. LSAT has the perovskite crystal structure, and its most common use is as a single crystal substrate for the growth of epitaxial thin films.
Relaxor ferroelectrics are ferroelectric materials that exhibit high electrostriction. As of 2015, although they have been studied for over fifty years, the mechanism for this effect is still not completely understood, and is the subject of continuing research.
A complex oxide is a chemical compound that contains oxygen and at least two other elements. Complex oxide materials are notable for their wide range of magnetic and electronic properties, such as ferromagnetism, ferroelectricity, and high-temperature superconductivity. These properties often come from their strongly correlated electrons in d or f orbitals.
Mixed conductors, also known as mixed ion-electron conductors(MIEC), are a single-phase material that has significant conduction ionically and electronically. Due to the mixed conduction, a formally neutral species can transport in a solid and therefore mass storage and redistribution are enabled. Mixed conductors are well known in conjugation with high-temperature superconductivity and are able to capacitate rapid solid-state reactions.
Yuri Suzuki is a Professor of Applied Physics at Stanford University. She studies novel ground states and magnetic phenomena. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and an American Competitiveness and Innovation Fellow of the National Science Foundation.
Harold Yoonsung Hwang is an American physicist, specializing in materials physics, condensed matter physics, nanoscience, and quantum engineering.
Jeremy Levy is an American physicist who is a Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh.
