Multiferroics: From Unusual Ferroelectricity Towards Universal Scaling
Prof. Manfred Fiebig (Department of Materials, ETH Zürich)

Multiferroics: From Unusual Ferroelectricity Towards Universal Scaling

Materials with a coexistence of magnetic and electric order, called multiferroics, are rare because (anti)ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity tend to be mutually exclusive. In this sense, any occurrence of magnetoelectric multiferroicity involves unusual manifestations of ferroelectric order. In my talk I will highlight various examples for these "exotic ferroelectrics". Some of their abnormal properties affect device-related like ferroelectric domain walls with tunable conductance. Other properties are of a very fundamental nature such as a distribution of domains that follows universal scaling laws up to the realm of cosmology.