Complex ferroics such as ferroelectrics, ferroelastics, magnetoelectrics, antiferroelectrics, and others are associated with rich physics and a variety of technological applications. In the recent years such materials attracted even more attention, thanks to the discoveries of ferroelectricity at the nanoscale, magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroics and giant caloric effects in some ferroics. Interestingly, theoretical and computational research played an important, and sometimes even leading, role in the recent progress in fundamental understanding of such novel phenomena associated with complex ferroics. I will highlight some of our most recent advances in the area of predictive modeling of such materials. In particular, I will briefly review some of our recent methodological developments and then focus on the computational discoveries of giant electrocaloric, piezocaloric and multicaloric effects in ferroelectrics. I will also present some of our recent findings on the unusual dynamics associated with ferroelectric nanostructures and its potential applications for THz sensing.
Inna Ponomareva received M.S. Degree from Volgograd State University, Russia in 2001, and the Ph.D. degree in physics from Institute of Biochemical Physics of Russian Academy of Sciences in 2004. In 2004 she joined University of Arkansas as a postdoctoral fellow. She joined the department of Physics at the University of South Florida in 2009 as an assistant professor. She is a NSF CAREER awardee. Her research is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation and the Army Research Office of the Department of Defense. She has co-authored over 50 journal publications.
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