Ferroics - Materials synthesis, characterization and applications

The course is given every second year, next time will be autumn 2027. The course will present new, relevant and advanced topics on functional ferroic materials. Topics that will be covered include emergent characteristics, such as ferroic and multiferroic states of matter (ferroelectric, ferromagnetism, ferroelasticity, ferrotoroidicity) and the formation of domains / domain walls. A specific focus will be put on functional electric properties, including piezoelectric and relaxor behaviour in single crystals, ceramics, thin films and composites materials, as well as their applications. The course will be based on new original literature and will require an active participation from the candidates.

The students will get an introduction and overview concerning the modern research on functional (ferroic) materials, covering all fields from advanced synthesis to characterization and applications. The current understanding of this class of materials will be discussed, as well as open questions and possible future research directions. The lecture will provide the basic knowledge that is required to follow scientific publications that are published in the field, to be able to use acquired knowledge on own research problems and discuss related problems. The participants will learn to give oral presentations about state-of-the-art research topics, transforming the challenging scientific papers they read into their own language, so that they can explain the content to other students and non-specialists.

The teaching will be a combination of introductory lectures to the different core topics, colloquia and self-studies. Depending on the number of participants, 3 to 5 core topics will be identified. The lecturer will give a general introduction to each of these topics, followed by more specialized/focused talks given by the students. In order to prepare their oral presentation, the students will have to do a project work covering selected topics from the curriculum. The curriculum will be the same for all simultaneous candidates. The final exam will be an oral examination. Expected time usage: Lectures: 15 hours, work on semester project and presentation: 85 hours. Selfstudy: 100 hours. If there are fewer than three candidates, the course will be taught through colloquium work.