Researchers Uncover Multiple Ground States in Ferroelectric Material
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - 14:00
in Physics & Chemistry
An important family of electric compounds just became more complicated in a good way. A paper published today in Nature shows that ferroelectric materials used in cell phones, computer memories, medical ultrasound and naval sonar may exhibit new properties as a result of "geometric frustration" caused by the addition of a third atom to a set of two atoms to form a triangular lattice.