Atomic Structure and Properties of Charged Domain Walls in BiFeO3 Films

Abstract

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2013 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, August 4 – August 8, 2013.

Origin of atomic displacement in HAADF image of the tilted specimen

“…In addition, the HAADF image contrast depends strongly on the atomic number Z of the scattering atoms in a simple Z n form (n=1.6-1.9) [1] except for some special conditions [2] , which makes the composition identification easy through intensity patterns in the image. Recently some literatures [3][4][5][6] described a direct estimate of the atom displacement by characterizing the bright spot displacement in the HAADF image under the hypothesis that those bright spots correspond to the actual positions of the atomic columns. Spurgeon et al directly measured the induced ferroelectric polarization from the relative position deviation of the heavy atoms in the SrTiO 3 layers and revealed that the built-in asymmetric potential across the LaCrO 3 /SrTiO 3 interfaces is sufficient to induce a sizable polarization, on the order of 40-70 µC cm -2 , in good agreement with ab initio calculations.…”

Enhancement of polar nature of domain boundaries in ferroelastic Pb3(PO4)2 by doping divalent-metal ions

“…Typical examples are high conductivity [1][2][3][4][5][6], 6 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed. superconductivity [7], high mobility [8][9][10], charged domain wall [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], polarity [8,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25], and multiferroicity and chirality [26,27]. These functionalities have lead to a concept of 'domain boundary engineering [28]' or 'domain wall nanoelectronics [29]' which has a great potential for industrial innovations.…”