Valasek, Joseph

Valasek, Joseph (1897-1993) discovered ferroelectricity in the 1920s during an investigation of the anomalous dielectric properties of Rochelle salt, NaKC4H406-4H20. Rochelle salt is named after the town of La Rochelle (France) where it was first prepared. Valasek was on the faculty at the University of Minnesota from 1919 until he retired in 1965. 

Ferroelectric liquid crystals are a novel state of matter, a very recent addition to the science of ferroelectrics which, in itself, is of relatively recent date. The phenomenon which was later called ferroelectricity was discovered in the solid state (on Rochelle salt) in 1920 by Joseph Valasek, then a PhD student at the University of Minnesota. His first paper on the subject [1] had the title Piezo-Electric and Allied Phenomena in Rochelle Salt. This was at the time when solid state physics was not a fashionable subject and it took several decades until the importance of the discovery was recognized. Valasek had then left the field. Later, however, the development of this branch of physics contributed considerably to our understanding of the electrical properties of matter, of polar materials in particular and of phase transitions and solid state physics in general. In fact, the science of ferroelectrics is today an intensely active field of research. Even though its technical and commercial importance is substantial, many breakthrough applications may still lie ahead of us. The relative importance of liquid crystals within this broader area is also constantly growing. This is illustrated in Fig. 1,... 

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