Agenda for Multiferroic Third Meeting

The highly successful third meeting in the X-ray & Neutron Scattering in Multiferroics Research series was held at NPL on Thursday 14 November 2013.

The 2013 workshop group outside NPL's main entrance

This workshop, like the first two, focused on the practical realisation of high quality experimental studies of multiferroic materials (including ferroic materials in general). To this end, the former Functional Materials Group at NPL brought together many leading researchers in the field to share ideas and results in a pleasant and informal setting through a varied and dynamic programme featuring:

• Keynote introductions to recent experimental and theoretical results
• New in-situ capability within beamlines in Europe and the USA
• Live video streaming and recorded video segments showing the practicalities of some of the metrologies being developed at NPL and the XMaS beamline at the ESRF

The event was co-hosted by NPL and the XMaS beamline (ESRF), with financial support from: NPL; the XMaS beamline; the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3); University of Oxford; University of Liverpool; University of Warwick; the EPSRC; the National Measurement System (NMS); and the European Training Network 'Nanomotion'.

This workshop was attended by 50 people from universities, international laboratories and industry. A well-attended poster session and final forum also engaged the attendees in discussions about best practices, common problems and state-of-the-art experiments for the study of this class of materials.

Presentations

The following talks were presented:

(All downloads are PDF files, unless otherwise stated, where Permission to Publish has been granted)

• Magnetic neutron diffraction on type II multiferroics at ILL
  Laurent Chapon (ILL-France)
• Magnetically driven dielectric properties of Bi_0.5La_0.5FeO₃: competition between geometry optimisation and magnetism
  Finlay Morrison (University of St Andrews)
• Electrodes deposition (live demonstration)
  Andrés Muñiz-Piniella - with Rachel Gleeson and Mark Stewart (NPL)
• What first principles can do for you and what you can do for first principles
  Claude Ederer (ETH Zürich)
• Imaging ferroelectric control of magnetic domains using Photoemission Electron Microscopy
  Sarnjeet Dhesi (Diamond Light Source)
• PE Loops (live demonstration)
  Mark Stewart (NPL)
• Current and future capabilities for multiferroic research at ISIS on the WISH diffractometer
  Pascal Manuel (ISIS facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory)
• XMaS Beamline (in-situ measurements and new capabilities)
  Paul Thompson (XMaS/ESRF)
• Direct view of spin dynamics in a large magnitude coherent electromagnon
  Urs Staub (PSI-SLS)
• Interferometer/MOKE (demonstration)
  Serban Lepadatu
• Generating direct magnetoelectric behaviour in EuTiO₃
  Philip J Ryan (Advanced Photon Source)
• Neutron scattering experiments on multiferroics at PSI: focus on thin films and skyrmion lattices
  Jonathan White (PSI-SINQ)

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the United Kingdom's national standards laboratory, an internationally respected and independent centre of excellence in research, development and knowledge transfer in measurement and materials science. Annually, it delivers over £75M of research and knowledge transfer programmes. Its resources include over 450 technical and scientific experts, spanning a wide range of disciplines; 36,000m² of laboratories and many unique facilities.

The Functional Materials Group at NPL is internationally respected for leading work in the science and metrology of ferroelectric, piezoelectric and multiferroic materials, functional MEMS design and development, and their industrial application. The group has world-class facilities for materials characterisation, with active research projects in performance and reliability of piezoelectric actuators and sensors, thin film ferroelectrics, nano-ferroelectrics, multiferroics, and piezo-MEMS technologies. NPL is a founding member, director and vice president of the former Piezo Institute, through which they had access to the leading UK and European suppliers of functional materials and manufacturing technologies.