Quantum functional oxides and combinatorial chemistry

Metal oxides are attracting rapidly growing interest as a treasure island of new functional materials, as exemplified by the high-T-c cuprates and quantum functional perovskites discovered in recent years. The development of new processes to fabricate multicomponent compounds efficiently as well as to construct artificially designed crystal lattices and heterojunctions is considered to facilitate the systematic exploration of new materials, and the properties and applications of oxides. Combinatorial chemistry and molecular layer epitaxy are described as powerful tools for these purposes, with focus on their concepts, methods, and some experimental results. A novel synthetic method which combines these two processes is proposed as a promising technology for future materials exploration. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.