Andy Rappe, John Vohs and Dawn Bonnell
Pioneering experiments reported [upper left] the ability of ferroelectric domain orientation to switch surface chemistry on and off, finding unambiguous evidence that the polarity of a ferroelectric surface can have a strong impact on the energetics of physisorption.
These experimental observations are now corroborated by first principles/Monte Carlo calculations. The landscape of Pd adsorption & diffusion on the LiNbO3 surface was computed [color figure]; on the positive polar surface, rapid clustering into a single cluster is seen [lower left], while on the negative polar surface, Pd atoms remain widely dispersed [lower right].