Structural and ferroelectric phase transitions
Sezimovo Usti, Czech Republic
May 19 – 23, 2014
The idea of regular scientific meetings of physicists involved in studies of ferroelectrics and phase transitions in Poland and Czechoslovakia followed inevitably from the success of first such an event in Blazejewko in 1979. The Seminar was organized in collaborating of the Department of Dielectrics of the Institute of Physics of Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and the Ferroelectric Lab of the Institute of Molecular Physics of Polish Academy of Sciences. The Seminars are an international forum for presentation of recent results, unconstrained discussions and initiating of joint studies. This conference series results not only in scientific integration but also in close cooperation and friendship. The bianual event usually brings together about 100–120 participants in a proportion: approximately one third from the Czech Republic, one third from Poland and the rest from other countries.
| I. | Blazejewko, Poland | 1979 |
| II. | Melnik, Czechoslovakia | 1980 |
| III. | Kolobrzeg, Poland | 1981 |
| IV. | Piesky, Czechoslovakia | 1982 |
| V. | Kozubnik, Poland | 1983 |
| VI. | Liberec, Czechoslovakia | 1984 |
| VII. | Karpacz, Poland | 1986 |
| VIII. | Senohraby, Czechoslovakia | 1988 |
| IX. | Poznan–Kiekrz, Poland | 1990 |
| X. | Paseky nad Jizerou, Czechoslovakia | 1992 |
| XI. | Paseky nad Jizerou, Czechoslovakia | 1994 |
| XII. | Jurata, Poland | 1996 |
| XIII. | Liblice, Czech Republic | 1998 |
| XIV. | Swinoujscie, Poland | 2000 |
| XV. | Nectiny, Czech Republic | 2002 |
| XVI. | Great Mazurian Lakes, Poland | 2004 |
| XVII. | Znojmo, Czech Republic | 2006 |
| XVIII. | Zakopane, Poland | 2008 |
| XIX. | Telc, Czech Republic | 2010 |
| XX. | Ustron, Poland | 2012 |
| XXI. | Sezimovo Usti, Czech Republic | 2014 |
The venue of XXI Czech–Polish seminar was Sezimovo Usti, Czech Republic.
First reports on Sezimovo Usti date back to 1250 when it was probably a well-developing town. The reports are related to church consecration and silver mining. The most important period is related to the Hussite movement, in particular to the stay of Jan Hus, and founding of the first Hussite community after his burning at stake in Constance. The inhabitants later moved to a newly founded town of Tabor and burnt out the abandoned Sezimovo Usti. The abandoned area, covered with grass and bushes, created a unique archaeologic site revealing the life at the beginning of 15th century. Within 30 years of excavations, a whole complex of estates, craftsmen workshops, storage places with raw materials and expensive bespoke products, lots of tools and home equipment, as well as wells and drainage system. No wonder the town is nicknamed the Czech Pompei.
The town was re-established in 1828. The original part Sezimovo Usti 1 is a quiet town formed by houses and gardens, dominated by the Jan Hus square. The new part Sezimovo Usti 2, separated by the main road E55, is connected with business activites of Tomas Bata. Building of a large machinery plant called MAS (Kovosvit in these days) started in 1939. Simultaneously, houses for employees were built as well as a combined cultural centre with a department store. The Centre was later rebuilt and serves as a hotel these days.
The second Czechoslovak president, Edvard Benes, had a summer-house in Sezimovo Usti, and he is buried there with his wife Hana. In the close neighbourhood, you can find a ruin of Kozi Hradek castle, the place of sermons delivered by Jan Hus himself.
Sezimovo Usti is a town of 7,300 inhabitants and area of about 8.5 km2; it makes an agglomeration of 47,000 inhabitants together with neighbouring Plana nad Luznici and the historical city of Tabor. Sezimovo Usti is located approx. 85 km to the south of Prague along the international route E55 to Ceske Budejovice.
Accommodation was provided in Hotel Mas***, Namesti Tomase Bati 417, 391 02 Sezimovo Usti. The hotel is located in a quiet area of Sezimovo Usti, close to the main road E55 connecting Prague and Ceske Budejovice. The hotel offers single/double/triple rooms, full board, free Wi-Fi, free swimming pool, bowling bar (subject to fee) etc.
The neighbouring city of Tabor can be easily reached by public bus. The town was founded in 1420 as a reformation centre and military fortress on the summit of an isolated hill, separated from the surroundings by the river of Luznice. The name Tabor is based on the narrative from the Book of Judges about prophetess Deborah and army leader Barak who led his soldiers atop the Thabor hill near Nazareth and then defeated the enemy army at the foot of the hill.
In 1437 it became a royal city. To provide water supply, an extensive lake of Jordan was built at the edge of the town. Founded in 1492, the lake is the oldest reservoir of its kind in Central Europe.
Zizka square, the central point of the city, is dominated by the Gothic Dean Church, the Town Hall and burgher houses. The Town Hall with its impressive four wings is one of the most remarkable late-Gothic buildings in the country. It houses the Hussite Museum and serves as an entry to underground corridors. The central part of the square is occupied by a Renaissance fountain and a statue of the legendary Hussite military commander Jan Zizka.
The Hussite religious reformation was gradually developing as a result of growing discontent with everyday activity of the medieval Catholic Church. The mass outbtreak of fighting began after a wilful behaviour of New Town burgomaster and town councillors on July 30, 1419 ending with defenestration. Upon the event, king Wenceslaus IV died of a heart attack and a revolution swept over the country. The predominantly religious movement was propelled by social issues and national awareness. Besides some religious doctrines the Czech reformation was targeted against the debauchery based on privilege, violence, abuse and misconduct of power. A disciplined army of peasants was developed under legendary leadership of Jan Zizka. The reformation forces started to build Tabor, a reformation centre and a military fortress, in spring 1420. The Tabor city provided a strong support for the movement. The Hussite voluntary army of the reform believers defeated five consecutive papal crusade armies. On the other hand, the Hussite troops organized attacks into neighbouring countries, among others to Poland. In 1432, negotiations with the Hussites and their opponents began at the Council of Basel, resulting in acceptance of the Compacta of Prague in 1433. The document, signed by the pope Eugenius IV. and the king Sigismund, played an important role for all the successive protestant movements in Europe.
The spiritual leader of the aborning reformation was Jan Hus who preached that the Holy Scripture is a basis for the faith and that every believer in the Lord has a natural right to expound it in his own way. His ideas were influenced by the reformation doctrines of John Wyclif, a theologian at Oxford University. Jan Hus, the rector of the Charles University in Prague, was burned at the stake for heresy on July 6, 1415 in Constance. Another spiritual leader of the reformation and the follower of Jan Hus was Jeronym Prazsky (Hieronymus Pragensis). Jeronym Prazsky, Master of the Charles University in Prague, Sorbonna, Heidelberg, and Koln, who studied John Wyclif’s writings at Oxford, was burned at the stake on May 30, 1416. Hus’s execution was taken as offence by many Czechs of all social strata. His execution had a great repercussion in the Czech society and called for disregard of the king Sigismond, the brother of the king Wenceslaus IV. The Hussite reformation with armed support broke several years after their death and was never defeated by crusade forces. A century later, in the time of Martin Luther’s reformation, a number of Christian churches alongside with the Catholic Church existed in Czech kingdom. At the time of 16th and 17th centuries, free choice of religion was exceptional. The Thirty Years War put an end to the pluralism of denomination expressed by the rule Cuius regio, eius religio. As a result of The Thirty Years War a large number of Czechs were forced to leave their homeland, among them the members of the church called Czech or Moravian Brethren. They have survived in exile having formed communities, e.g. in Poland (Zelow).
Jan Hus introduced diacritical marks above letters to represent sounds alien to Latin. The basic principle is “one sound, one letter”. The Czech alphabet consists of 42 letters, including the digraph “Ch” which is considered a single letter in Czech:
A, Á, B, C, Č, D, Ď, E, É, Ě, F, G, H, Ch, I, Í, J, K, L, M, N, Ň, O, Ó, P, Q, R, Ř, S, Š, T, Ť, U, Ú, Ů, V, W, X, Y, Ý, Z, Ž
The alphabets of several other European languages are based on the Czech alphabet, omitting and adding letters according to their needs. The most notable exception is Polish which developed its own Roman script independently.
In the course of the 19th Century, Jan Hus became a symbol of the Czech national emancipation. He has been acknowledged as an exceptional character, faithful to his belief to the utmost consequences. His exceptional attitude under the threat of death has been recently acknowledged by the common commission of the Catholic and Czech non-Catholic churches, the foundation of which was inspired by the late Pope St. John Paul II; for the Catholic Church, Jan Hus has been considered as its Reformer.
Before his death, Jan Hus wrote a letter from the dungeon prison in Constance addressed “to all faithful Czechs”:
I also pray you to love one another, not to let good people be oppressed by force and to allow everyone to enjoy the truth.
Thematical scope of the XXIII Czech–Polish Seminar included all its traditional subjects:
Technical program of the XXIII Czech–Polish Seminar was scheduled from Monday, May 21 till Friday, May 25. Wednesday afternoon was reserved for a sightseeing tour.
| Monday May 21 | Tuesday May 22 | Wednesday May 23 | Thursday May 24 | Friday May 25 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7:30–8:50 | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast | Breakfast | |
| 8:50–9:00 | Opening | ||||
| 9:00–10:30 | Session 2 | Session 6 | Session 8 | Session 12 | |
| 10:30–11:00 | Coffee break | Coffee break | Coffee break | ||
| 11:00–13:00 | Session 3 | Session 7 | Session 9 | ||
| 13:00–15:00 | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | Lunch | |
| 15:00–16:30 | Session 4 | Excursion | Session 10 | Departure to Prague | |
| 16:30–17:00 | Registration | Tea time | Tea time | ||
| 17:00–18:00 | Session 5 | Session 11 | |||
| 18:00–19:00 | Session 1 | Poster session I | Dinner | ||
| 19:00–20:00 | Dinner | Dinner | Poster session II | Conference dinner | |
| 20:00–??? | Welcome party |
The official language of the conference was English.
| TUTORIALS in Prague | |
| 8:30—10:00 | P. Kužel Effective medium in composites including plasmonic and Mie resonances |
| 10:15—11:45 | H. Němec Terahertz spectroscopy — methods and applications |
| 11:45—12:45 | Lunch |
| 12:45—14:15 | M. Paściak Correlated disorder in crystalline materials — experimental methods and simulations |
| 15:00 | Bus departure from Prague |
| 15:00—18:30 | Registration in Harrachov |
| 18:00—21:00 | Dinner |
| TUTORIAL | |
| 20:00—21:30 | P. Baláž Introduction to machine learning in solid state physics |
| TUTORIAL | |
| 8:30—9:40 | P. Márton Simulation of ferroelectric domain patterns using phase-field method |
| 9:40—10:10 | Coffee break |
SESSION 1 — PHASE TRANSITIONS (10:15—12:25) | |
| 10:10—10:15 | Opening |
| 10:15—10:50 | J. Íñiguez (invited) Giant voltage amplification from incipient ferroelectric states |
| 10:50—11:10 | E. Buixaderas Disentangling the dielectric anisotropy in strontium barium niobate |
| 11:10—11:30 | M. Guennou Polar phonon modes in ferroelastic BiVO4 |
| 11:30—11:50 | J. Dec Interfacial polarization phenomena in compressed nanowires of SbSI |
| 11:50—12:25 | A. Gągor (invited) Crystal engineering and structure—property relationships in organic—inorganic lead halides |
| 12:30—14:30 | Lunch |
SESSION 2 — THEORY (14:30—16:20) | |
| 14:30—14:50 | M. Paściak New adventures with polar vortices |
| 14:50—15:10 | P. Márton Modeling of a 180° charged domain wall in ferroelectric PbTiO3 |
| 15:10—15:30 | M. A. Pereira Gonçalves Polar skyrmions in BaTiO3 at low temperature |
| 15:30—15:50 | J. Kulda Efficient modeling of single crystal diffuse scattering |
| 15:50—16:20 | Tea time |
SESSION 3 — PHASE TRANSITIONS & COMPETITION (16:35—18:00) | |
| 16:20—16:55 | K. Roleder (invited) The still undiscovered PbZrO3, a difficult nut to crack |
| 16:55—17:15 | K. Tesař Volumetrically incomplete phase transition: example and outlooks |
| 17:15—18:00 | Student competition |
| 18:00—20:00 | Dinner |
| 20:00—21:30 | Poster session I |
| TUTORIALS | |
| 8:30—9:30 | V. Janiš Spin glasses — random magnetic materials with macroscopic order |
| 9:30—10:30 | V. Novotná Liquid crystals — through the history towards ferroelectric nematics |
| 10:30—11:00 | Coffee break |
SESSION 4 – LIQUID CRYSTALS (11:00—11:55) | |
| 11:00—11:35 | M. A. Osipov (invited) Molecular statistical theory of phase transitions and liquid crystal ordering in rod-coil triblock copolymers |
| 11:35—11:55 | M. Mrukiewicz Electrical characterization of the ferronematic phase |
| 12:00—14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00—18:30 | Excursions |
| 18:00—20:00 | Dinner |
| 20:00—21:30 | Poster session II |
| TUTORIAL | |
| 8:30—9:45 | S. Kamba Static and dynamic magnetoelectric coupling in multiferroics |
| 9:45—10:15 | Coffee break |
SESSION 5 — PHASE TRANSITIONS (10:15—12:25) | |
| 10:15—10:50 | W. Schranz Domain walls in ferroic materials: what can we learn from layer group analysis? |
| 10:50—11:10 | C. Kadlec Unusual features of lattice dynamics in lawsonite related to its phase transitions: a study using broadband dielectric spectroscopy |
| 11:10—11:30 | M. Šimėnas Suppression of phase transitions and glass phase signatures in mixed cation halide perovskites |
| 11:30—11:50 | I. Jankowska-Sumara Composition-driven structural phase transitions in Sn doped antiferroelectric PbHfO3: A review |
| 11:50—12:25 | Š. Svirskas (invited) Dielectric relaxation in BaTiO3 based solid solutions |
| 12:30—14:30 | Lunch |
SESSION 6 — MULTIFERROICS AND MAGNETISM (14:30—15:50) | |
| 14:30—14:50 | J. A. Moreira Strain relaxation dynamics of multiferroic orthorhombic manganites |
| 14:50—15:10 | M. M. Gomes Unravelling the structural phase sequence and origin of its modulation in multiferroic Bi0.7La0.3FeO3 |
| 15:10—15:30 | P. Vilarinho Magnetic anomalies and spin-phonon coupling in RFeO3 |
| 15:30—15:50 | S. Kamba THz-field-induced transient multiferroicity in quantum paraelectric KTaO3 |
| 15:50—16:20 | Tea time |
SESSION 7 — DOMAIN WALLS (16:20—17:55) | |
| 16:20—16:55 | L. Eng (invited) Reconfigurable 2D electron gases in ferroelectric domain walls |
| 16:55—17:15 | P. Bednyakov Formation of ferroelectric charged domain walls in BaTiO3 single crystals |
| 17:15—17:35 | I. Gaponenko Correlative imaging of ferroelectric domain walls |
| 17:35—17:55 | K. Cordero-Edwards Novel functionalities at twin domain crossings |
| 17:55—18:20 | J. Pokorný History of swing music |
| 19:00—23:00 | Conference dinner |
| SESSION 8 – PHASE TRANSITIONS (9:00—10:15) | |
| 9:00—9:35 | J. Petzelt (invited) Unusual dynamics of the ferroelectric transition in K1−xLixTaO3 |
| 9:35—9:55 | P. Ławniczak Non-trivial electric response of low-temperature proton conductors based on imidazolium isomers |
| 9:55—10:15 | C. Milesi-Brault Soft mode and low-frequency lattice dynamics of BaZrO3 single crystals |
| 10:15—10:45 | Coffee break |
SESSION 9 — PHASE TRANSITIONS (10:45—12:05) | |
| 10:45—11:05 | F. Kadlec Dynamics and orientations of water molecules linked to their low-temperature ferroelectric ordering in hydrated beryl |
| 11:05—11:25 | L. Musy Probing the behaviour of surface water and ferroelectric PbTiO3 thin films as a function of relative humidity and temperature |
| 11:25—11:45 | P. Kužel Time-resolved near-field terahertz spectroscopy reveals charge confinement in GaAs nanobars beyond geometry |
| 11:45—12:05 | D. Nuzhnyy Broadband dielectric spectroscopy of conducting core-dielectric shell nanocomposites |
| 12:05—12:30 | Closing |
| 12:30—14:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 | Bus departure to Prague |
The organizers would like to thank the participants for their contributions and warm atmosphere of the meeting. There were 108 participants from 13 countries at the XXI Czech–Polish seminar:
The registrations and abstract submissions appeared as follows:
There were two types or oral presentations – the standard ones and short oral student talks within dedicated sessions. Standard facilities were available for oral presentations:
For your presentation, you can use either your own notebook or the conference one. If you intend to use the conference notebook, please give us your presentation file well in advance - you can use a storage medium (USB flash disk, CD ROM) or our upload form (the same form you have used for sending the abstract). On the conference notebook, the following presentation file formats are supported:
The poster boards are 100 cm wide and 120 cm high. Please do not use self-adhesive tapes or Velcro which will not work. Pins will be available on site.
There will be two poster sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. All posters will be hanged during both sessions.
Participants are encouraged to present papers also to the special issue of Phase Transitions edited by J. Hlinka, J. Petzelt, B. Hilczer and A. Pawlovski. Interested authors should prepare their manuscritps in the standard format for the Phase Transitions journal, please see the Manuscript advice file. The manuscripts should be uploaded using our Manuscript submission form before April 30, 2014. Please note that this is well before the conference actually starts!
Detailed information on manuscript preparation can be found at the publisher's website. Please note that images should be submitted in the TIFF, PS or EPS file format, see artwork submission details.
For any questions or concerns please feel free to write to .
| 2nd circular: | January 27, 2014 |
| Registration: | March 30, 2014 |
| Abstract submission: | March 30, 2014 |
| Acceptance of contributions: | April 15, 2014 |
| Contributions to the Special issue: | April 30, 2014 |
| Payment by bank transfer: | April 30, 2014 |
| Conference: | May 19–23, 2014 |
Dr. Vladimira Novotna
Institute of Physics, ASCR
Na Slovance 2, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic
Tel.: +420 2 66052134
Fax: +420 2 86890527
e-mail:
web site: http://palata.fzu.cz/cpsem/
Jan Pokorny
Institute of Physics, ASCR
Na Slovance 2, 182 21 Prague 8, Czech Republic
Tel.: +420 2 66052654
Fax: +420 2 86890527
e-mail:
web site: http://palata.fzu.cz/cpsem/