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Our coworker Anna Razumnaya, in collaboration with the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (Germany), the University of Picardie Jules Verne (France), and the CEMES-CNRS and Université de Toulouse (France), reported Switchable Topological Polar States in Epitaxial

BaTiO3 Nanoislands on Silicon in Nature Communications.

This study presents the creation of epitaxial BaTiO3 nanoislands on silicon, featuring chiral topological polar textures. These structures demonstrate unique center-type polarization domains that can be reversibly switched under an electric field. Insights into their 3D polarization patterns were achieved through piezoresponse force microscopy and phase-field modeling. The findings highlight a promising approach for integrating functional ferroelectric nanostructures into silicon-based platforms for next-generation nanoelectronic devices.

DOI: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-54285-z

We investigated two ionic liquid crystals by means of optical microscopy, X-ray, and fast field-cycling NMR relaxometry. The LC solutions were found to form foams, which produce some beautiful images.

These inspired the cover image of the journal issue. Link to the Article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.langmuir.4c02059