Researchers demonstrated that straining the crystal lattice of strontium cobaltite reduces oxygen content even under highly oxidizing conditions, enabling formation of functional oxygen defects at lower temperatures than previously possible.
Giant elastic tunability—the Young’s modulus changes reversibly over 30% under applied electric fields—was discovered in BiFeO3 epitaxial thin films through an atomic force microscopy study utilizing band-excitation piezroresponse spectroscopy.
Multiferroic materials are important because their electrical and magnetic properties are coupled. Because BiFeO3 magnetically orders below 640 K, it is one of two known room-temperature multiferroic materials.
Contradicting theoretical expectations, researchers discovered that increased molecular weight of a polymer significantly reduces the influence of nanoparticles on macroscopic properties of polymer nanocomposite.