MINERAL PEROVSKITE GAINING A NAME

Abstract

The article discusses the name history of the mineral perovskite (calcium titanate, CaTiO3), found in the mining Urals in the 1830s. Today the term ‘perovskite’ is used for naming a wide class of materials with similar crystalline structure. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, scientists discovered several unique properties of these materials, which are of interest from both basic and applied perspectives: superconductivity, colossal magnetoresistance, ferroelectricity, etc. In 1987 and 2007 perovskite research has been awarded two Nobel Prizes in physics. One of the most important scientific achievements of recent years has been the unprecedented increase in the efficiency of perovskite solar cells, which made it possible to talk about the coming perovskite revolution in the energy sector. However, in the first half of the 19th century it was impossible to predict the promising future of perovskites, so the discovery of a new mineral did not arouse noticeable interest outside a narrow circle of experts. Until now, the early history of perovskite remains poorly understood and is replete with white spots. Thus, the place where the first sample was found is reliably known, but the exact date of discovery and the discoverer are not known as yet. The mineral perovskite was named after a high-ranking amateur mineralogist Lev Perovsky, the choice of the name is attributed to the Berlin mineralogist Gustav Rose. In fact, the authoritative specialist G. Rose participated in the examination of the discovered mineral, but the name of the stone was given by another, less-known person — the St. Petersburg pharmacist Alexander Kammerer.