A phononic switch based on ferroelectric domain walls

Abstract

The ease with which domain walls (DWs) in ferroelectric materials can be written and erased provides a versatile way to dynamically modulate heat fluxes. In this work we evaluate the thermal boundary resistance (TBR) of 180${}^{\circ }$ DWs in prototype ferroelectric perovskite PbTiO${}_3$ within the numerical formalisms of nonequilibrium molecular dynamics and nonequilibrium Green's functions. An excellent agreement is obtained for the TBR of an isolated DW derived from both approaches, which reveals the harmonic character of the phonon-DW scattering mechanism. The thermal resistance of the ferroelectric material is shown to increase up to around 20%, in the system sizes here considered, due to the presence of a single DW, and larger resistances can be attained by incorporation of more DWs along the path of thermal flux. These results, obtained at device operation temperatures, prove the viability of an electrically actuated phononic switch based on ferroelectric DWs.

References in corpus (2)

• Carbon Nanocone: A Promising Thermal Rectifier
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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Infrared nano-spectroscopy of ferroelastic domain walls in hybrid improper ferroelectric Ca${}_3$Ti${}_2$O${}_7$
• Giant electrophononic response in PbTiO${}_3$ by strain engineering
• Anisotropy-driven thermal conductivity switching and thermal hysteresis in a ferroelectric
• Ferroelectric 180 degree walls are mechanically softer than the domains they separate