Related papers: Ferroelectricity, SSFLC, bistability and all that
Ferroelectricity is usually found in compound materials composed by different elements. Here, based on first-principles calculations, we reveal the first example of spontaneous electrical polarization and ferroelectricity in stable…
In the last ten years significant advances have been made in our understanding and ability to compute and predict properties of ferroelectrics and piezoelectrics using fundamental physics. Phase diagrams, electromechanical and elastic…
Ferroelectrics have a spontaneous electrical polarization that is arranged into domains and can be reversed by an externally applied field. This high versatility makes them useful in enabling components such as capacitors, sensors, and…
Polar nematic liquid crystals are new classes of condensed-matter states where the inversion symmetry common to the traditional apolar nematics is broken. Establishing theoretical descriptions for the novel phase states is an urgent task.…
Electrical modulation and switching of photoluminescence (PL) have been demonstrated in pure deformed helix ferroelectric liquid crystal (DHFLC) material. The PL intensity increases and peak position shifts towards lower wavelength above a…
The macroscopic dielectric permittivity of dielectric crystals is related to the microscopic atomic polarizability of constituent atoms by the known Clausius-Mossotti relation obtained in the middle of 19th century. We derive a similar…
Topological spin and polar textures have fascinated people in different areas of physics and technologies. However, the observations are limited in magnetic and solid-state ferroelectric systems. Ferroelectric nematic is the first…
So-called polar liquid crystals possess spontaneous long-range mutual orientation of their electric dipole moments, conferring bulk polarity to fluid phases of matter. The combination of polarity and fluidity leads to complex phase…
The quantum-mechanical expression for the polarization of a crystalline solid does not bear any resemblance to the (trivial) expression for the dipole of a bounded crystallite; and in fact it has been proved via a conceptually different…
The ferroelectric nematic phase (N$_{\text{F}}$) has quickly become the most studied system in liquid crystal research. In this work, we investigate the origin of such polar structure by studying a compound for which the N$_{\text{F}}$…
Polar distortion, the collective off-center displacements of atoms, is a fingerprint of a ferroelectric that governs its properties and functionalities. Since the 1970s, the concepts of proper, improper and triggered ferroelectrics have…
The first switchable electric polarization in metals was recently discovered in bilayer and trilayer WTe2. Strangely, despite the tininess of the ordered polarization, the ferroelectricity survives up to 350 K, rendering the mechanism of…
HfO2, a simple binary oxide, holds ultra-scalable ferroelectricity integrable into silicon technology. Polar orthorhombic (Pbc21) form in ultra-thin-films ascribes as the plausible root-cause of the astonishing ferroelectricity, which has…
Instabilities are discussed which take place when a nematic liquid crystal (LC) layer, enclosed between a planar reference plate and a photosensitive substrate, is illuminated with polarized light from the reference side ({\it reverse}…
We are concerned with the modification of liquid crystalline and polar order in SmC* liquids by illumination. In particular we show that non-uniformity due to absorption and also dynamics, can be complex. The variation of polarization with…
Going down to the limit of ultrathin films holds promise for a new generation of devices such as ferroelectric tunnel junctions or resistive memories. However, these length scales also make the devices sensitive to parasitic effects related…
Statistical theory of the dielectric susceptibility of polar liquid crystals is proposed. The molecules are calamitic or bent-core but the permanent dipole moment is perpendicular to the molecule long axis. The ordering of the phase is…
The recent discovery of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking has demonstrated the possibility of discovering the exotic textures of ferromagnetic systems in liquid crystalline fluid ferro-electrics. We show that the polar smectic mesophase…
Li et al. (Science Advances, 29 January, p. eabe3068) claim the discovery of two improper ferroelectrics, dabcoHClO4 and dabcoHBF4 (dabco = 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane), and that these materials exhibit superior pyroelectric figures of…
Ferroelectric liquid crystals (FLCs) couple the direction of their spontaneous electric polarization to the direction of tilt of their optic axis. Consequently, reversal of the electric polarization by an electric field gives rise to an…