Boundaries in electronic and superconducting ceramics

The electrical properties of individual grain boundaries in a number of commercially important electronic ceramics and in superconducting yttrium barium cuprate are reviewed. In addition, a technique of wide applicability for the preparation of bicrystal thin films by the templating of a grain boundary from a bicrystal substrate is introduced. Finally some of the notions pertinent to the description of grain boundaries in terms of crystal chemistry are discussed.