Switching a Polar Metal via Strain Gradients

Although rare, spontaneous breakdown of inversion symmetry sometimes occurs in a material which is metallic: these are commonly known as polar metals or ferroelectric metals. Their polarization, however, is difficult to switch via an electric field, which limits the experimental control over band to...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Zabalo, Asier, Stengel, Massimiliano
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/243529
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/243529
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ferroelectricity
First-principles calculations
Flexoelectricity
Metals
Descripción
Sumario:Although rare, spontaneous breakdown of inversion symmetry sometimes occurs in a material which is metallic: these are commonly known as polar metals or ferroelectric metals. Their polarization, however, is difficult to switch via an electric field, which limits the experimental control over band topology. Here we investigate, via first-principles theory, flexoelectricity as a possible way around this obstacle with the wellknown polar metal LiOsO3. The flexocoupling coefficients are computed for this metal with high accuracy with an approach based on real-space sums of the interatomic force constants. A Landau-GinzburgDevonshire-type first-principles Hamiltonian is built and a critical bending radius to switch the material is estimated, whose order of magnitude is comparable to that of BaTiO3.