Magnetic avalanche of non-oxide conductive domain walls

Abstract

Atomically sharp domain walls (DWs) in ferroelectrics are considered as an ideal platform to realize easy-to-reconfigure nanoelectronic building blocks, created, manipulated and erased by external fields. However, conductive DWs have been exclusively observed in oxides, where DW mobility and conductivity is largely influenced by stoichiometry and defects. In contrast, we here report on conductive DWs in the non-oxide ferroelectric GaV${}_4$S${}_8$, where charge carriers are provided intrinsically by multivalent V${}_4$ molecular clusters. We show that this new mechanism gives rise to DWs composed of nanoscale stripes with alternating electron and hole conduction, unimaginable in oxides. By exerting magnetic control on these segments we promote the mobile and effectively 2D DWs into dominating the 3D conductance, triggering abrupt conductance changes as large as eight orders of magnitude. The flexible valency, as origin of these novel hybrid DWs with giant conductivity, demonstrates that non-oxide ferroelectrics can be the source of novel phenomena beyond the realm of oxide electronics.

8 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (8)

• Strain gradient induced polarization in SrTiO3 single crystals
• Conduction at domain walls in insulating Pb(Zr${}_{0.2}$Ti${}_{0.8}$)O${}_3$ thin films
• Characteristics of ferroelectric-ferroelastic domains in N{é}el-type skyrmion host GaV${}_4$S${}_8$
• Possible emergence of a skyrmion phase in ferroelectric GaMo${}_4$S${}_8$
• Thermodynamic Properties of Ferromagnetic Mott- Insulators GaV4S8
• Architecture of nanoscale ferroelectric domains in GaMo4S8
• Lattice dynamics and electronic excitations in a large family of lacunar spinels with a breathing pyrochlore lattice structure
• Magnetic phase transitions and spin density distribution in the molecular multiferroic GaV${}_4$S${}_8$ system

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Quasimolecular $J_{\mathrm{tet}}$=3/2 moments in the cluster Mott insulator GaTa${}_4$Se${}_8$
• Antipolar transitions in GaNb${}_4$Se${}_8$ and GaTa${}_4$Se${}_8$
• Stability and low-energy orientations of interphase boundaries in multiaxial ferroelectrics: Phase-field simulations
• Jahn-Teller driven quadrupolar ordering and spin-orbital dimer formation in GaNb${}_4$Se${}_8$
• Current Flow Mapping in Conducting Ferroelectric Domain Walls using Scanning NV-Magnetometry
• Metallic conductivity on Na-deficient structural domain walls in the spin-orbit Mott insulator Na${}_2$IrO${}_3$
• New trends in the nanophysics of ferroics, relaxors and multiferroics