Science Daily September 3, 2019
An international team of researchers (The Netherlands, USA – Pennsylvania State University, Spain, UK) observed a structural transition in the ferroelastic material barium titanate. The unit cells in these crystals are elongated creating an elastic strain that reduces the crystal stability. Increasing the temperature increases the entropy in the material. Cooling the material reduces the periodicity of the domains by repeated halving. They have shown that the behaviour observed in the ferroelastic barium titanate is generic for ferroic materials. Doubling of domains creates a structure similar to the bifurcating dendrites connecting the pyramidal cells in the brain. Ultimately, ferroic materials on the edge of chaos may be used to create electronic brain-like systems for complex computing…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLE