A Thin Film Turns into a Ferroelectric
A cube of potassium tantalate behaves like an ordinary dielectric: it doesn't store an electric field. But grow this material as a thin film on a substrate of another crystal, and everything changes.
Seeing the Unseen: Electric Patterns Inside a Crystal
On the surface of a thin film of bismuth iron oxide, you can see neat stripes, like furrows in a plowed field. What lies beneath them has remained a mystery until now.