Our Center is focused on the synthesis and study of a large variety of compounds, including oxides and intermetallics, with interesting structural instabilities, and unconventional electronic and magnetic ground states. We are particularly interested in multiferroic materials, which exhibit two or more ferroic orders simutaneously, e.g. ferromagnetism, ferroelectricity, and ferroelasticity. The magnetic and ferroelectric properties are investigated by various imaging techniques, such as atomic force microscopy, piezoresponse force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, scanning tunneling microscopy, as well as neutron scattering and x-ray diffraction. A broad range of samples are grown by solid state reaction, chemical vapor transport, chemical solution method, high-temperature flux, optical floating zone, high-pressure synthesis andPLD, from polycrystal to single crystal and thin film.