Abstract: Ionic solids are important for electronic and energy
storage/conversion devices. Examples include ferroelectrics and solid
oxides. Defects in these materials play a central role in enabling
their properties: for example, the electromechanics of ferroelectrics
occurs by the nucleation and growth of domain wall defects, and solid
oxide ionic conduction is through the motion of point defects. I will
talk about our efforts to develop multiscale atomistic methods to
understand the structure of defects in these materials. A particular
challenge is the nonlocal nature of the electrostatic interactions
coupled with the nonlinearity of the short-range interactions.