Evidence of hyperdimensional topological defects in a ferroelectric supercrystal phase-transition

Abstract

We perform real-time stereoscopic wide-area imaging of a ferroelectric phase-transition in KTN:Li. Spontaneous polarization is observed to form a thermally hysteretic 3D lattice of mutually interlinked closed-flux patterns that spans the entire sample. Results are compatible with a supercrystal of N = 4 topological texture defects arising as the three-fold spatial and one-fold time-inversion symmetries are simultaneously broken. Each lattice site of the texture supercrystal emerges as the projection in actual space of an S 3 hypersphere, an extended volume Hopf-link fabric able to screen both volume charge and ferroelectric strain.