Probing the role of single defects on the thermodynamics of electric-field induced phase transitions

Abstract

The kinetics and thermodynamics of first order transitions is universally controlled by defects that act as nucleation sites and pinning centers. Here we demonstrate that defect-domain interactions during polarization reversal processes in ferroelectric materials result in a pronounced fine structure in electromechanical hysteresis loops. Spatially-resolved imaging of a single defect center in multiferroic BiFeO3 thin film is achieved, and the defect size and built-in field are determined self-consistently from the single-point spectroscopic measurements and spatially-resolved images. This methodology is universal and can be applied to other reversible bias-induced transitions including electrochemical reactions.

34 pages,4 figures, high quality figures are available upon request, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (2)

• Fractal dimension and size scaling of domains in thin films of multiferroic BiFeO3
• Observation of inhomogeneous domain nucleation in epitaxial Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 capacitors

Cited by in corpus (9)

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• Controllable Defect Driven Symmetry Change and Domain Structure Evolution in BiFeO3 with Enhanced Tetragonality
• Local Polarization Switching in the Presence of Surface Charged Defects: Microscopic Mechanisms and Piezoresponse Force Spectroscopy Observations
• Multiscaling analysis of ferroelectric domain wall roughness
• Toward Decoding the Relationship between Domain Structure and Functionality in Ferroelectrics via Hidden Latent Variables
• Flexo-induced ferroelectricity in low dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides
• Modeling Temperature, Frequency, and Strain Effects on the Linear Electro-Optic Coefficients of Ferroelectric Oxides
• Mesoscopic Origin of Ferroelectric-Ferroelectric Transition in BaTiO3