Demonstration of “electronic ferroelectricity,” a new principle underlying electric polarization in an organic ferroelectric ： Lecturer Fumitaka Kagawa, department of Applied Physics & Quantum-Phase Electronics Center 
May 30, 2012
A researcher group, Kensuke Kobayashi and Professors Reiji Kumai, Youichi Murakami from the Institute of Materials Structure Science at KEK discovered a new phenomenon, “electronic ferroelectricity,” through electric polarization measurements and synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments, in collaboration with Sachio Horiuchi and his team at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Fumitaka Kagawa (lecturer at the University of Tokyo), and Yoshinori Tokura (the University of Tokyo and Group director of Riken. Electronic ferroelectricity is a mechanism by which the magnitude and direction of electric polarization in organic ferroelectrics are determined by the dynamic motion of elements between molecules. Systems exhibiting this type of ferroelectricity show polarization response to electric fields exceeding 20 times that in the classical displacement model, where static charges shift with the displacement of ions, resulting in spontaneous polarization; therefore, the discovery of the aforementioned phenomenon is expected to drive further improvement of performance in ferroelectrics.
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