BCA Spring Meeting 2005 Loughborough University Tuesday 12 April to Thursday 14 April 2005

This parallel session on the popular subject of phase transitions commences with a tutorial workshop session, which is then followed by the two lecture sessions. In the tutorial session a number of topics on structural phase transitions will be introduced, including critical exponents (both in theory and in practice), the Landau theory and its applications, and the role of soft modes at phase transitions. This will be done by reviewing the example of strontium titanate, undoubtedly the most studied and still highly controversial phase transition today. Some class-room demonstrations of critical phenomena and soft modes will be shown. For the purposes of this session little or no basic knowledge of the topic is assumed and therefore this session should be understandable to physical and non-physical crystallographers alike.

Detailed Programme

08.30 Mike Glazer (Oxford) - Critical Aspects of Structural Phase Transitions (tutorial session)

10.00 Coffee & Exhibition

10.30 Jens Kreisel (Grenoble) - Pressure-Induced Phase Transitions in Piezoelectric Lead-Based Perovskites

11.00 Julien Haines (Montpellier) - Stability of the Crystal Structures of Alpha Quartz Homeotypes at High Temperature and at High Pressure

11.30 Michael Carpenter (Cambridge) - The Role of Protons in Ferroelectric, Ferroelastic, and Coelastic Phase Transitions in Lawsonite, CaAl₂Si₂O₇(OH)₂.H₂O

12.00 Lunch

13.00 Laurent Chapon (ISIS) - Magnetic Phase Transitions

13.30 Ivana Evans (Durham) - Structural Origin of the Oxide Ion Migration Pathway in La₂Mo₂O₉

14.00 Michael Morris (Cork, Ireland) - In-Situ Studies of Order�Disorder Phenomena in the Synthesis of Mesoporous Silica

14.30 Tea