Origin of Ferroelastic Domains in Free-Standing Single Crystal Ferroelectric Films

Abstract

The origin of the unusual 90^o ferroelectric / ferroelastic domains, consistently observed in recent studies on meso and nanoscale free-standing single crystals of BaTiO3 [Schilling et al., Physical Review B, 74, 024115 (2006); Schilling et al., Nano Letters, 7, 3787 (2007)], has been considered. A model has been developed which postulates that the domains form as a response to elastic stress induced by a surface layer which does not undergo the paraelectric-ferroelectric, cubic-tetragonal phase transition. This model was found to accurately account for the changes in domain periodicity as a function of size that had been observed experimentally. The physical origin of the surface layer might readily be associated with patterning damage, seen in experiment; however, when all evidence of physical damage is removed from the BaTiO3 surfaces by thermal annealing, the domain configuration remains practically unchanged. This suggests a more intrinsic origin, such as the increased importance of surface tension at small dimensions. The effect of surface tension is also shown to be proportional to the difference in hardness between the surface and the interior of the ferroelectric. The present model for surface tension induced twinning should also be relevant for finely grained or core-shell structured ceramics.

References in corpus (11)

• Ab initio study of ferroelectric domain walls in PbTiO3
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• Ab-initio study of BaTiO3 surfaces
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• Ab initio calculations of BaTiO3 and PbTiO3 (001) and (011) surface structure
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• Understanding the origins of the intrinsic dead-layer effect in nanocapacitors
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Cited by in corpus (9)

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• Giant strain gradient elasticity in SrTiO3 membranes: bending versus stretching
• The origins of electromechanical indentation size effect in ferroelectrics
• Periodicity doubling cascades: direct observation in ferroelastic materials
• Phase Diagrams and Domain Splitting in Thin Ferroelectric Films with Incommensurate Phases
• Multidomain switching in the ferroelectric nanodots
• Magnetic shape-memory effect in SrRuO${}_3$
• Faceting Oscillations in Nano-Ferroelectrics
• Stressor-Layer-Induced Elastic Strain Sharing in SrTiO3 Complex Oxide Sheets