Atomic Imaging of Mechanically Induced Topological Transition of Ferroelectric Vortices

Abstract

Ferroelectric vortices formed through complex lattice-charge interactions have great potential in applications for future nanoelectronics such as memories. For practical applications, it is crucial to manipulate these topological states under external stimuli. Here, we apply mechanical loads to locally manipulate the vortices in a PbTiO3-SrTiO3 superlattice via atomically resolved in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy. The vortices undergo a transition to the a-domain with in-plane polarization under external compressive stress and spontaneously recover after removal of the stress. We reveal the detailed transition process at the atomic scale and reproduce this numerically using phase-field simulations. These findings provide new pathways to control the exotic topological ferroelectric structures for future nanoelectronics and also valuable insights into understanding of lattice-charge interactions at nanoscale.

References in corpus (4)

• Ab initio study of ferroelectric domain walls in PbTiO3
• Blowing Polar Skyrmion Bubbles in Oxide Superlattices
• Effect of symmetry mismatch on the domain structure of rhombohedral BiFeO3 thin films
• Natural optical activity and its control by electric field in electrotoroidic systems

Cited by in corpus (9)

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• Stress-Induced Phase Transitions in Nanoscale CuInP${}_2$S${}_6$
• Flexo-Elastic Control Factors of Domain Morphology in Core-Shell Ferroelectric Nanoparticles: Soft and Rigid Shells
• Electric-field control of the nucleation and motion of isolated three-fold polar vertices
• Poincaré sphere engineering of dynamical ferroelectric topological solitons
• Theory of Polar Skyrmions in Layered Structure of Ferroelectric Perovskites