Strain Gradients in Epitaxial Ferroelectrics

Abstract

X-ray analysis of ferroelectric thin layers of Ba1/2Sr1/2TiO3 with different thickness reveals the presence of internal strain gradients across the film thickness and allows us to propose a functional form for the internal strain profile. We use this to calculate the direct influence of strain gradient, through flexoelectric coupling, on the degradation of the ferroelectric properties of thin films with decreasing thickness, in excellent agreement with the observed behaviour. This work highlights the link between strain relaxation and strain gradients in epitaxial films, and shows the pressing need to avoid strain gradients in order to obtain thin ferroelectrics with bulk-like properties.

4 pages, 3 embedded figures (1 color), revTex4

References in corpus (5)

• Ultrathin films of ferroelectric solid solutions under residual depolarizing field
• Ab initio study of the phase diagram of epitaxial BaTiO3
• Smearing of phase transition due to a surface effect or a bulk inhomogeneity in ferroelectric nanostructures
• Internal electric field originated from mismatch effect and its influence on ferroelectric thin film properties
• Coexistence of antiferrodistortive and ferroelectric distortions at the PbTiO${}_3$ (001) surface

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• New trends in the nanophysics of ferroics, relaxors and multiferroics
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