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LiOsO3 is one of the first materials identified in a recent literature as a 'polar metal', a class of materials that are simultaneously noncentrosymmetric and metallic. In this work, the linear and nonlinear optical susceptibility of LiOsO3 is studied by means of ellipsometry and optical second harmonic generation (SHG). Strong optical birefringence is observed using spectroscopic ellipsometry. The nonlinear optical susceptibility extracted from SHG polarimetry reveals that the tensor components are of the same magnitude as in isostructural insulator LiNbO3, except the component along the polar axis d33, which is suppressed by an order of magnitude. Temperature-dependent SHG measurements in combination with Raman spectroscopy indicate a continuous order-disorder type polar phase transition at 140 K. Linear and nonlinear optical microscopy techniques reveal 109 deg/71 deg ferroelastic domain walls, like in other trigonal ferroelectrics. No 180 deg polar domain walls are observed to emerge across the phase transition., Supplementary material in ancillary files

We employ a lattice Hamiltonian to examine the dynamics of coupled normal modes excited through a nonlinear phononic process, extending the model beyond infrared and first-order Raman active mode couplings to include interactions between symmetry-allowed Raman active modes. We examine the strength of the interactions between two Raman active modes on the targeted driven-mode dynamics to confirm that all symmetry allowed Raman modes interact with each other. We apply the model to the correlated insulating ferromagnet YTiO3 and present the resulting renormalization effects on the driven-mode dynamics from the anharmonic interactions. Owing to the dependence of the displacive amplitude of the Raman active mode on such interactions, especially for those modes with small amplitude, we suggest that models of anharmonic phononic coupling in materials with electronic, ferroic, or superconducting properties derived from competing Raman-like distortions should include these low-order terms in the equations of motion describing the excited phonons to obtain accurate physical models.

CaFeO3 is a prototypical negative charge transfer oxide that undergoes electronic metal-insulator transition concomitant with a dilation and contraction of nearly rigid octahedra. Altering the charge neutrality of the bulk system destroys the electronic transition, while the structure is significantly modified at high charge content. Using density functional theory simulations, we predict an alternative avenue to modulate the structure and the electronic transition in CaFeO3. Charge distribution can be modulated using strain-rotation coupling and thin film engineering strategies, proposing themselves as a promising avenue for fine tuning electronic features in transition metal-oxide perovskites.

In their article, Zhao et al. report the synthesis of SrIrO3 at high temperature and high pressure [J. Appl. Phys. 103, 103706 (2008)]. Under these conditions, the crystal structure of SrIrO3 can be stabilized as an orthorhombic perovskite with space group Pnma. They refine the lattice parameters and list the Wyckoff orbits and atomic coordinates. We believe that Zhao and coworkers made an unintentional error in reporting the crystal structure, which may adversely affect the description of the electronic structure. Indeed, we show the reported structure does not define a standard perovskite with nearly rigid IrO6 octahedral tilts and rather exhibits a structural discrepancy with respect to the equilibrium structure obtained from density functional calculations.

One of the grand challenges facing materials-by-design approaches for complex oxide deployment in electronic devices is how to balance transformative first-principles based predictions with experimental feasibility. Here, we briefly review the functionality-driven approach (inverse design) for materials discovery, encapsulated in three modalities for materials discovery (m3D) that integrate experimental feedback. We compare it to both traditional theoretical and high-throughput database-directed approaches aimed at advancing oxide-based materials into technologies.

We show that the NiO6 crystal field energies can be tailored indirectly via heterovalent A cation ordering in layered (La,A)NiO4 Ruddlesden–Popper (RP) oxides, where A = Sr, Ca, or Ba, using density functional calculations. We leverage as a driving force the electrostatic interactions between charged [LaO]1 + and neutral [AO]0 planes to inductively tune the Ni–O bond distortions, without intentional doping or epitaxial strain, altering the correlated d-orbital energies. We use this strategy to design cation ordered LaCaNiO4 and LaBaNiO4 with distortions favoring enhanced Ni eg orbital polarization, and find local electronic structure signatures analogous to those in RP La-cuprates, i.e., parent phases of the high-temperature superconducting oxides.