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10 stories from Planck Standard. Latest: September 7, 2026.
Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute switched the handedness of chiral phonons in a 40-nanometer barium titanate membrane with an electric field, and the new state survived after the field was switched off.
Researchers switched the chirality of phonons inside a ferroelectric crystal with an electric field, then watched the electron spins flip along with them — an electrical control knob for spin that spintronics has been missing.
In a potassium-tantalate-niobate crystal, electric dipoles turned out to be interlacing over and under each other in three dimensions — a structure nobody had ever seen form spontaneously in a solid.
Researchers at Oak Ridge, Ohio State and Amphenol found that switching on an electric field in a relaxor ferroelectric ceramic can steer and triple its heat conduction, a tunable effect that could reshape how chips and devices stay cool.
Multi-slice electron ptychography reveals the polar-domain structure inside lead magnesium niobate, the workhorse of medical ultrasound and sonar.
Three-dimensional atomic mapping reveals unexpected charge patterns in relaxor ferroelectrics used in ultrasound and sonar systems for decades.
Relaxor ferroelectrics power ultrasounds and sonar for decades, but their atomic structure remained unknown until breakthrough 3D mapping.
Breakthrough imaging reveals three-dimensional structure of relaxor ferroelectrics, materials that power ultrasound machines and sonar systems worldwide.
Researchers finally reveal the three-dimensional structure of relaxor ferroelectrics, materials that power ultrasound machines and sonar systems worldwide.
Breakthrough mapping of relaxor ferroelectrics challenges decades of assumptions and opens path to better-designed devices.