Local electrical imaging of tetragonal domains and field-induced ferroelectric twin walls in conducting SrTiO3
Date
24/06/2016Author
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Abstract
We demonstrate electrical mapping of tetragonal domains and electric field-induced twin walls in SrTiO3 as a function of temperature and gate bias utilizing the conducting LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface and low-temperature scanning electron microscopy. Conducting twin walls appear below 105 K, and new twin patterns are observed after thermal cycling through the transition or on electric field gating. The nature of the twin walls is confirmed by calculating their intersection angles for different substrate orientations. Numerous walls formed when a large side- or back-gate voltage is applied are identified as field-induced ferroelectric twin walls in the paraelectric tetragonal matrix. The walls persist after switching off the electric field and on thermal cycling below 105 K. These observations point to a new type of ferroelectric functionality in SrTiO3, which could be exploited together with magnetism and superconductivity in a multifunctional context.
Citation
Ma , H J H , Scharinger , S , Zeng , S W , Kohlberger , D , Lange , M , Stöhr , A , Wang , X R , Venkatesan , T , Kleiner , R , Scott , J F , Coey , J M D , Koelle , D & Ariando 2016 , ' Local electrical imaging of tetragonal domains and field-induced ferroelectric twin walls in conducting SrTiO 3 ' , Physical Review Letters , vol. 116 , no. 25 , 257601 . https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.257601
Publication
Physical Review Letters
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0031-9007Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 American Physical Society. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.257601
Description
This work is supported by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Academic Research Fund (AcRF Tier 1 Grants No. R-144-000-346-112 and No. R-144-000-364-112) and the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) under the Competitive Research Programs (CRP Awards No. NRF-CRP 8-2011-06 and No. NRF-CRP10-2012-02) by the Institutional Strategy of the University of Tübingen (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Grant No. ZUK 63), and by the EU-FP6-COST Grant No. MP1308.Collections
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