Fundamental Physics of Ferroelectrics and Related Materials 2012
January 29 - February 1, 2012
Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL USA

Program Information
The workshop on Fundamental Physics of Ferroelectrics and Related Materials has been running every year since 1990. In these materials, the interplay of structural, electronic and magnetic degrees of freedom gives rise to competing instabilities with respect to atomic displacements, lattice strains, magnetization, and/or polarization, leading to rich phase diagrams and unusual physical properties arising from their high sensitivity to external fields. A wide range of new materials have thus been discovered, including novel tunable dielectrics, piezoelectrics, and multiferroics, with the hopes of many more enabled by tremendous experimental advances in the synthesis of materials artificially structured on the atomic scale.

The 2012 conference will bring together computational materials theorists, condensed matter theorists, and experimentalists to discuss current understanding of these “active” materials, especially their strong cross-coupled responses to electric, magnetic, and stress fields. Topics will include new ferroelectric materials, multiferroics, piezoelectrics and electro-mechanical response, multifunctional materials, morphotropic phase boundary systems, relaxor ferroelectrics, ferroelectric films and superlattices, interface effects, nanostructured ferroelectrics, domain effects, dynamics and glassy behavior, and new methods for synthesis, characterization and theory. Presentations will be a mix of invited and oral presentations, selected from the submitted abstracts, and posters.

Important Deadlines
Abstract Submission Deadline is December 2, 2011
Registration Deadlines are:

• Non-US citizens: December 2, 2011
• US citizens: January 6, 2012

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS
Serge Nakhmanson, Argonne National Laboratory: nakhmanson@anl.gov
Dillon Fong, Argonne National Laboratory: fong@anl.gov
David Singh, Oak Ridge National Laboratory: singhdj@ornl.gov

SPONSORS
Materials Theory Institute, Argonne National Laboratory
Physical Sciences & Engineering, Argonne National Laboratory
Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory
CrysTec, GmbH