The perovskite unit cell is the fundamental building block of many functional materials. The manipulation of this crystal structure is known to be of central importance to controlling many technologically promising phenomena related to superconductivity, multiferroicity, mangetoresistivity, and photovoltaics. The broad range of properties that this structure can exhibit is in part due to the ce...

Spray pyrolysis has been used to prepare La0.6 Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ thin film cathodes for solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) applications. The films are polycrystalline with nano-meter sized grains and less than 1 μm in thickness. Deposition parameters for film deposition have been established. The ratio of deposition temperature to solvent boiling point is found to be the most important processing p...

We report measurements and analyses of resistivity, thermopower and thermal conductivity of polycrystalline samples of perovskite LaRh(1-x)Ni(x)O(3). The thermopower is found to be large at 800 K (185 µV K(-1) for x = 0.3), which is ascribed to the high-temperature stability of the low-spin state of Rh(3+)/Rh(4+) ions. This clearly contrasts with the thermopower of the isostructural oxide LaCoO...

Controlling the size and shape of semiconducting nanocrystals advances nanoelectronics and photonics. Quantum-confined, inexpensive, solution-derived metal halide perovskites offer narrowband, color-pure emitters as integral parts of next-generation displays and optoelectronic devices. We use nanoporous silicon and alumina thin films as templates for the growth of perovskite nanocrystallites di...

We report all-solution-processed transparent conductive electrodes based on Ag nanowire (AgNW)-embedded metal oxide composite films for application in organometal halide perovskite solar cells. To address the thermal instability of Ag nanowires, we used combustive sol-gel derived thin films to construct ZnO/ITO/AgNW/ITO composite structures. The resulting composite configuration effectively pre...

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG, Y3Fe5O12) was examined up to 74 GPa and 1800 K using synchrotron x-ray diffraction in a diamond anvil cell. At room temperature, YIG remained in the garnet phase until abrupt amorphization occurred at 51 GPa, consistent with earlier studies. Upon laser heating up to 1800 K, the material transformed to a single-phase orthorhombic GdFeO3-type perovskite of composition (Y...

We report studies of ferroelectricity in ultra-thin perovskite films with realistic electrodes. The results reveal stable ferroelectric states in thin films less than 10 Å thick with polarization normal to the surface. Under short-circuit boundary conditions, the screening effect of realistic electrodes and the influence of real metal/oxide interfaces on thin film polarization are investigated....

We carry out first-principles calculations of the nonlinear dielectric response of short-period ferroelectric superlattices. We compute and store not only the total polarization, but also the Wannier-based polarizations of individual atomic layers, as a function of the electric displacement field, and use this information to construct a model capable of predicting the nonlinear dielectric respo...

Reduction and oxidation in transition-metal oxides are keys to develop technologies related to energy and the environment. Here we report the selective topochemical reduction observed when artificial superlattices with transition-metal oxides are treated at a temperature below 300 °C with CaH(2). [CaFeO(2)](m)/[SrTiO(3)](n) infinite-layer/perovskite artificial superlattice thin films were obtai...