Thermal quench effects on ferroelectric domain walls

Using piezoresponse force microscopy on epitaxial ferroelectric thin films, we have measured the evolution of domain wall roughening as a result of heat-quench cycles up to 735 -C, with the effective roughness exponent ζ changing from 0.25 to 0.5. We discuss two possible mechanisms for the observed...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Paruch, P., Kolton, Alejandro Benedykt, Hong, X., Ahn, C. H., Giamarchi, T.
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versão publicada
Data de publicação:2012
País:Argentina
Recursos:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositório:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/197168
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/197168
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Ferroelectrics
domain walls
Disorder
out of equilibrium
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descrição
Resumo:Using piezoresponse force microscopy on epitaxial ferroelectric thin films, we have measured the evolution of domain wall roughening as a result of heat-quench cycles up to 735 -C, with the effective roughness exponent ζ changing from 0.25 to 0.5. We discuss two possible mechanisms for the observed ζ increase: a quench from a thermal one-dimensional configuration and from a locally equilibrated pinned configuration with a crossover from a two- to one-dimensional regime. We find that the postquench spatial structure of the metastable states, qualitatively consistent with the existence of a growing dynamical length scale whose ultraslow evolution is primarily controlled by the defect configuration and heating process parameters, makes the second scenario more plausible. This interpretation suggests that pinning is relevant in a wide range of temperatures and, in particular, that purely thermal domain wall configurations might not be observable in this glassy system. We also demonstrate the crucial effects of oxygen vacancies in stabilizing domain structures.