Locally Ordered Materials
A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Advanced Materials Characterization".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 June 2023) | Viewed by 1634
Special Issue Editor
Interests: relaxor ferroelectrics; domain structure of ferroelectrics; low-frequency dielectric relaxation; non-linear dielectric response; mesoscopic disorder in ferroics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Ferromagnetics, ferroelectrics, ferroelastics, and ferrotoroidics (generally referred to as four ferroic orders) represent a family of materials with collective features reaching spontaneous, stable long-range ordered ground states of matter. In addition to that, ferroic orientation states (domains) may be reversed under the action of an appropriate external field. Very often, such a switching process manifests in a respective hysteresis loop. Here one deals with the engineering of charge, spin, and lattice, respectively.
On the other hand, imperfections in the form of locally or short-range ordered states of matter incorporated into the well-ordered crystalline lattice have recently attracted a great deal of attention. The point is that such local ordering phenomena break the long-range, average symmetry at the nanometre scale and thus radically modify behaviors stemming from the simplified model. Among others, these materials comprise mesoscopic ferroic glasses such as relaxor ferroelectrics or magnetic cluster glasses. In such systems, quenched statistical fluctuations of short-ranged interactions generate the ferroic clusters, while long-ranged dipolar electric/magnetic or quadrupolar stress field interactions may stabilize their glassy disorder on mesoscopic length scales. Another possible scenario may originate from geometrical frustration, where the interacting elementary units tend to stick to anomalous positions. Furthermore, the chemical heterogeneity of the cationic site occupation may also be considered a possible reason for intrinsic disorder. As a consequence, one obtains very complex systems that demand intense research activity. These materials may also offer unique potential for developing new electronic devices.
This Special Issue, “Locally Ordered Materials”, will cover a broad range of their physical properties, technological aspects, and potential applications with new advances in this attractive field of research. We cordially invite you to contribute your research paper, communication, or review for this Special Issue.
Prof. Dr. Jan Dec
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- ferroelectrics
- ferromagnetics
- ferroelastics
- ferroics
- relaxors
- dipolar glasses
- spin glasses
- mesoscopic glasses
- frustrated materials
- domains
- local order
- quenched random fields
- nano-domains
- polar nanoregions
- clusters
