Combinatorial process involves the design and synthesis of high.desnity discovery libraries aimed at efficiently exploring a large number of structurally or compositionally diverse compounds thought to be of interest at a result of an understanding of their chemical or physical properties. Rapid, sensitive measurements of one or more of each library members result in the identification of a family of lrad compounds with a desired property.
We are interested in the synthesis of new magnetoresistive intermetallics and ferroelectric compounds. Until recently, the electronic reasons for the occurrence of enhanced magnetoresistance were open to debate. Therefore, the advances in the synthesis of new superconducting and GMR materials were more or less accidental, and it seemed impossible to predict new CMR compounds a priori. In fact, the most straightforward strategy towards these materials were based on an "old-fashioned approach" - conventional phase diagrams in order rationalize the properties of new phases a posteriori. Meanwhile it is possible to predict these properties theoretically for a group of compounds and optimize them subsequently by means of combinatorial procedures.