Nanoscale Heterogeneity in Functional Materials

The physical properties that make “functional” materials worthy of their moniker frequently arise because of a phase transition that establishes a new kind of order as the material is cooled from a parent state. Such ordered states include ferroelectrics, ferromagnets, and structurally ordered martensites; because these states all break an orientational symmetry, and it is rare that one can produce the conditions for single domain crystallinity, the observed configuration is generally heterogeneous. However, the conditions under which domain structures form are highly constrained, especially by elastic interactions within a solid; consequently, the observed structures are far from fully random, even if disorder is present. Often the structure of the heterogeneity is important to the function, as in shape-memory alloys. Increasingly, we are surprised to discover new phases inside solids that are themselves a heterogeneous modulation of their parents.