A tutorial on fundamentals, proposed definitions and common mistakes about antiferroelectricity.
Antiferroelectricity has attracted a growing interest in the last years, notably due to its relevance and potential in applications such as energy storage or cooling via electrocaloric effect, amongst others. However, the very notion of antiferroelectricity is still hard to define (and to agree upon!) and it has different uses across our community.
In this tutorial, I will first highlight some of the problems encountered while trying to define what an antiferroelectric is. I will also describe some fundamental properties of antiferroelectricity and what common pitfalls one can fall in. Here mostly inorganic antiferroelectric will be taken as examples, with a few organic ones too though I won't talk about liquid crystals.
I intend this seminar to be a pedagogical (and hopefully interactive) tutorial, so if you are already an expert in antiferroelectrics, you might not learn much. Also, I probably won’t have time to discuss many application concepts, synthesis or current work, but if you are interested in this, I could arrange a complementary seminar later on.