The relentless march of progress in modern electronic devices has always been dependent on continuous improvements in our understanding of the materials that go in to them. In a joint work between the Universities of Liège and Geneva, a new artificial material is revealed that marks the beginning of a revolution in the development of materials for electronic applications. The new material, a superlattice, which has a multilayer structure composed of alternating atomically thin layers of two different oxides (PbTiO3 and SrTiO3), possesses properties radically different to either of the two materials by themselves. These new properties are a direct consequence of the artificially layered structure and are driven by interactions at the atomic scale at the interfaces between the layers. Besides the immediate applications that could be generated by this nanomaterial, this discovery opens a completely new field of investigation and the possibility of new functional materials based on a new concept: interface engineering on the atomic scale.

Improper ferroelectricity in perovskite oxide artificial superlattices. Eric Bousquet (ULg), Matthew Dawber (SBU/UniGe), Nicolas Stucki (UniGe), Céline Lichtensteiger (UniGe), Patrick Hermet (ULg), Stefano Gariglio (UniGe), Jean-Marc Triscone (UniGe) & Philippe Ghosez (ULg). Nature 452, pp. 732-736 (2008)

See also the following link: A New Nanomaterial