APL Materials (Jun 2023)

Mapping the complex evolution of ferroelastic/ferroelectric domain patterns in epitaxially strained PbTiO3 heterostructures

  • Céline Lichtensteiger,
  • Marios Hadjimichael,
  • Edoardo Zatterin,
  • Chia-Ping Su,
  • Iaroslav Gaponenko,
  • Ludovica Tovaglieri,
  • Patrycja Paruch,
  • Alexandre Gloter,
  • Jean-Marc Triscone

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0154161
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 6
pp. 061126 – 061126-10

Abstract

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We study the complex ferroelastic/ferroelectric domain structure in the prototypical ferroelectric PbTiO3 epitaxially strained on (110)o-oriented DyScO3 substrates, using a combination of atomic force microscopy, laboratory and synchrotron x-ray diffraction, and high resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy. We observe that the anisotropic strain imposed by the orthorhombic substrate creates a large asymmetry in the domain configuration, with domain walls macroscopically aligned along one of the two in-plane directions. We show that the periodicity as a function of film thickness deviates from the Kittel law. As the ferroelectric film thickness increases, we find that the domain configuration evolves from flux-closure to a/c-phase, with a larger scale arrangement of domains into superdomains.