James Floyd Scott. 4 May 1942—6 April 2020

Abstract

Jim Scott was a larger-than-life figure who performed pioneering academic and commercial research, mainly on Raman spectroscopy, ferroelectrics, and multiferroics. His career developed at the same time as methodological advances were being made in thin-film deposition and in growth and patterning of complex nanoscale materials. Such advances gave him the opportunity to lead the charge in the integration of ferroelectric oxide films with semiconductors for microwave antennae (predominantly for mobile phones), and in the creation and integration of thin-film capacitor structures for ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) chips. He made particularly noteworthy contributions in overcoming the fatigue problem, critical to FeRAM technology. He also played a central role in pushing nanoscale ferroelectrics beyond thin films and into three-dimensional geometries and was an important figure in the birth, and in the renaissance, of magnetoelectric multiferroics. Like many great scientists, Jim was adept at spotting connections between seemingly unconnected topics, establishing new conceptual frameworks and discovering new phenomena that were often received sceptically at first and then embraced by the community.