Harnessing structural complexity to engineer new multifunctional oxides

Speaker: Beth Nowadnick
Date & Time: Friday April 7th, 2017 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Location: AMPEL 311
Local Contact: George Sawatzky
Intended Audience:

Complex oxides exhibit an incredible diversity of properties ranging from ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism to unconventional superconductivity. In addition, they are promising candidates for applications spanning from data storage to battery technology. Controlling the interplay between the microscopic electronic, spin, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom in oxides by manipulation of their structural and chemical complexity is a central challenge. In this talk, I will show how first-principles computational methods coupled with theoretical techniques can meet this challenge and enable the understanding and design of novel materials with targeted properties.  As an example, I will discuss new insights into the nanoscale domain structure and domain switching processes of a recently discovered type of ferroelectric oxide, which may enable electric field control of magnetic, orbital, and electronic states.