Labyrinthine domains in ferroelectric nanoparticles: a manifestation of gradient-driven morphological transition

Abstract

In the framework of the Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire (LGD) approach we studied finite size effects of the phase diagram and domain structure evolution in spherical nanoparticles of uniaxial ferroelectric. The particle surface is covered by a layer of screening charge characterized by finite screening length. The phase diagram, calculated in coordinates "particle radius vs. screening length" has a wide region of versatile poly-domain structures separating single-domain ferroelectric and nonpolar paraelectric phases. Unexpectedly, we revealed a region of stable irregular labyrinthine domains in the nanoparticles of uniaxial ferroelectric CuInP2S6 with the first order paraelectric-ferroelectric phase transition. We established that the origin of labyrinthine domains is the mutual balance of LGD, polarization gradient and electrostatic energies. The branching of the domain walls appears and increases rapidly when the polarization gradient energy decreases below the critical value. Allowing for the generality of LGD approach, we expect that the gradient-induced morphological transition can be the source of labyrinthine domains appearance in many spatially-confined ferroics with long-range order parameter, including relaxors, ferromagnetics, antiferrodistortive materials and materials with incommensurate ferroic phases.

20 pages, 5 figures, 1 table and supplement

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Stress-Induced Phase Transitions in Nanoscale CuInP${}_2$S${}_6$
• Electric Field Control of Three-Dimensional Vortex States in Core-Shell Ferroelectric Nanoparticles
• Chiral Polarization Textures Induced by the Flexoelectric Effect in Ferroelectric Nanocylinders
• Mapping gradient-driven morphological phase transition at the conductive domain walls of strained multiferroic films
• Flexo-Elastic Control Factors of Domain Morphology in Core-Shell Ferroelectric Nanoparticles: Soft and Rigid Shells
• Flexo-Sensitive Polarization Vortices in Thin Ferroelectric Films
• Stress-Induced Transformations of Polarization Switching in CuInP${}_2$S${}_6$ Nanoparticles
• Phenomenological description of bright domain walls in ferroelectric-antiferroelectric layered chalcogenides
• Phase diagram of ferroelectrics with tricritical and Lifshitz points at coupling between polar and antipolar fluctuations
• The Influence of Chemical Strains on the Electrocaloric Response, Polarization Morphology, Tetragonality and Negative Capacitance Effect of Ferroelectric Core-Shell Nanorods and Nanowires
• Mesoscopic structure of mixed type domain walls in multiaxial ferroelectrics
• Landau-Ginzburg theory of charge density wave formation accompanying lattice and electronic long-range ordering
• Phase transitions in ferroelectric domain walls
• Intrinsic structural instabilities of domain walls driven by gradient couplings: meandering anferrodistortive-ferroelectric domain walls in BiFeO3