UC Berkeley

This dissertation details methods of manipulating and dynamic studies of ferroic order in the multiferroic material, BiFeO3, and related material systems. The primary advances made as a result of the work described herein are understanding of intrinsic and extrinsic limits on ferroelectric switching (in particular free- and bound-charge dynamics, the role of, and pathways to manipulate the Landau free energy landscape and lattice dynamics) and implications for switching of magnetic order, mechanisms and factors impacting depolarization in ferroelectric materials, and a novel manifestation of magnetoelectric coupling enabling nonvolatile electric field control of magnon spin transport.