Electronically polarized systems are physical systems in which the electronic charge distribution is displaced relative to the nuclei, producing a net electric polarization that can be static, induced, or dynamic. This polarization arises from external electric fields, internal crystal fields, broken inversion symmetry, interfaces, or collective electronic instabilities, and is described microscopically by changes in electronic wavefunctions and macroscopically by a polarization vector field. Such systems include dielectrics, ferroelectrics, polar semiconductors, and heterostructures where bound or itinerant electrons respond anisotropically, strongly influencing dielectric response, excitations, screening, charge transport, and nonlinear optical properties central to condensed-matter and materials physics.
For smartphones and computers to become smaller and faster, technologies capable of precisely controlling electrical properties at the nanoscale—beyond what is visible to the naked eye—are essential. In particular, ferroelectric ...
Nanomaterials
Apr 8, 2026
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Monash University researchers have captured the exact atomic movements that write data to next-generation memory devices, which could pave the way for smaller, faster and more energy-efficient electronics. Published in Nature ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 31, 2026
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Piezoelectric materials, which convert mechanical stress into electricity and vice versa, are essential components in sensors, actuators, and energy-harvesting devices. However, the best piezoelectric materials, such as lead ...
Nanophysics
Mar 17, 2026
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Over the past decades, electronics engineers have been trying to develop increasingly smaller devices that can store information reliably, even when they are not powered on. A promising type of non-volatile memory device ...
Microbial bioelectronic sensors use living bacteria that can create an electrical signal in response to the presence of a target substance, or analyte. These types of sensors offer many advantages over other types of biosensors ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Mar 14, 2026
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130
Multiferroic metals are materials that exhibit both electric polarization and magnetic order in the same crystal—a state known as multiferroicity. Because these properties coexist, they can interact through magnetoelectric ...
Condensed Matter
Mar 13, 2026
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Shrinking ferroelectric tunnel junctions can significantly boost their performance in memory devices, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. The team fabricated nanoscale junctions directly on silicon substrates and ...
Nanophysics
Feb 24, 2026
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Conventional electronics process information leveraging the electrical charge of electrons. Over the past few decades, some electronics engineers have been exploring the potential of a different type of device that instead ...
When an electron travels through a polar crystalline solid, its negative charge attracts the positively charged atomic cores, causing the surrounding crystal lattice to deform. The electron and lattice distortion then move ...
Condensed Matter
Feb 17, 2026
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136
If you've ever watched a glass blower at work, you've seen a material behaving in a very special way. As it cools, the viscosity of molten glass increases steadily but gradually, allowing it to be shaped without a mold. Physicists ...
