Tiny Atomic Motions, Big Impact: Ferroelectric Symmetry Breaking to Tackle Our Data Consumption Addiction

Ferroelectricity has long served as a foundational platform for exploring
spontaneous symmetry breaking and collective interactions in nature. Beyond its
scientific intrigue, ferroelectric materials are central to a wide range of
technologies—including cellular communication, medical ultrasound imaging,
precision actuators, and emerging data storage and processing devices. However,
despite the extensive scientific and industrial interest these materials have garnered,
the fundamental origins of ferroelectricity remain elusive, limiting also our ability to
fully control and optimize their functional behavior.
In this talk, we will present how we developed and employed advanced
imaging methodologies to systematically uncover the emergence of ferroelectricity
across an extraordinary range of length scales, from picometers to hundreds of
micrometers. Scientifically, our findings offer new insights into the origin of
ferroelectricity and challenge conventional paradigms in phase transitions and
symmetry breaking. On the applied side, this work has fostered fruitful industrial
collaborations, already leading to the development of enhanced radiation detectors
and novel platforms for low-power computing.