Related papers: Ferroelectricity, SSFLC, bistability and all that
General microscopic mechanism of ferroelectric ordering in chiral smectic C* liquid crystals is considered. It is shown that if the mesogenic molecules have a sufficiently low symmetry, the spontaneous polarization is proportional to one of…
Ferroelectric materials underlie key optical technologies in optical communications, integrated optics and quantum computing. Yet, there is a lack of a consistent thermodynamic framework to predict the optical properties of ferroelectrics…
Polar liquid crystals possess three dimensional orientational order coupled with unidirectional electric polarity, yielding fluid ferroelectrics. Such polar phases are generated by rod-like molecules with large electric dipole moments.…
Mysterious high temperature structureless transitions in (TMTTF)2X compounds have been discovered in mid 80's (Coulon, Lawersanne,vet al), but left unexplained and abandoned, together with other warnings from structural effects (Moret,…
Since the first report of ferroelectricity in nanoscale HfO$_2$-based thin films in 2011, this silicon-compatible binary oxide has quickly garnered intense interest in academia and industry, and continues to do so. Despite its deceivingly…
Two-dimensional polar liquid crystals have been discovered recently in monolayers of anisotropic molecules. Here, we provide a systematic theoretical description of liquid-crystalline phases for polar particles in two spatial dimensions.…
Ferroelectric ordering, the electroclinic effect and chiral smectic C (SmC*) - smectic A (SmA*) phase transitions in thin planar ferroelectric liquid crystal (FLC) cells are studied by means of linear electrooptic and second harmonic…
The recently discovered ferroelectric nematic liquids incorporate to the functional combination of fluidity, processability and anisotropic optical properties of nematic liquids, an astonishing range of physical properties derived from the…
Superfluorescence (SF) is the collective emission of intense, coherent light from an interacting ensemble of quantum emitters1-4. While SF has been observed in several solid-state materials5-8, the spontaneous generation of circularly…
The ferroelectric (Sm C$^*$) -- antiferroelectric (Sm C$^*_A$) -- reentrant ferroelectric (re Sm C$^*$) phase temperature sequence was observed for system with competing synclinic - anticlinic interactions. The basic properties of this…
A ferroelectric is a material with a polar structure whose polarity can be reversed by applying an electric field. In metals, the itinerant electrons tend to screen electrostatic forces between ions, helping to explain why polar metals are…
The ground-state structural and electronic properties of ferroelectric BiFeO$_3$ are calculated using density functional theory within the local spin-density approximation and the LSDA+U method. The crystal structure is computed to be…
We have structurally characterized the liquid crystal phase that appears as an intermediate state when a dielectric nematic, having polar disorder of its molecular dipoles, transitions to the almost perfectly polar-ordered ferroelectric…
Ferroelectric nematic liquid crystals are formed by achiral molecules with large dipole moments. Its three-dimensional orientational order is universally described as unidirectionally polar. We demonstrate that the ground state of…
Materials with reduced dimensions have been shown to host a wide variety of exotic properties and novel quantum states that often defy textbook wisdom1-5. Ferroelectric polarization and metallicity are well-known examples of mutually…
Can a gas behave like a crystal? Supersolidity is an intriguing and challenging state of matter which combines key features of superfluids and crystals. Predicted a long time ago, its experimental realization has been recently achieved in…
The application of ferroelectric materials (i.e. solids that exhibit spontaneous electric polarisation) in solar cells has a long and controversial history. This includes the first observations of the anomalous photovoltaic effect (APE) and…
Liquid crystals are phases of matter intermediate between crystals and liquids. Whereas classical liquid crystals have been known for a long time and are used in electro-optical displays, much less is known about their quantum counterparts.…
In ferroelectrics, complex interactions among various degrees of freedom enable the condensation of topologically protected polarization textures. Known as ferroelectric solitons, these particle-like structures represent a new class of…
Halide perovskite semiconductors respond to electric fields in a way that varies across time and length scales. We discuss the microscopic processes that give rise to the macroscopic polarization of these materials, ranging from the optical…