Local control of improper ferroelectric domains in YMnO3

Structural coherence and ferroelectric order in nanosized multiferroic YMnO3

S. Tripathi,1 V. Petkov,1,* S. M. Selbach,2 K. Bergum,2 M.-A. Einarsrud,2 T. Grande,2 and Y. Ren3 1Department of Physics, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan 48859, USA 2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway 3Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois 60439, USA (Receive...

Direct Observation of Multiferroic Vortex Domains in YMnO3

Topological vortices with swirling ferroelectric, magnetic and structural anti-phase relationship in hexagonal RMnO3 (R = Ho to Lu, Y, and Sc) have attracted much attention because of their intriguing behaviors. Herein, we report the structure of multiferroic vortex domains in YMnO3 at atomic scale using state-of-the-art aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Two...

Vortex Ferroelectric Domains

We show experimental switching data on microscale capacitors of lead–zirconate–titanate (PZT), which reveal time-resolved domain behavior during switching on a 100 ns scale. For small circular capacitors, an unswitched domain remains in the center while complete switching is observed in square capacitors. The observed effect is attributed to the formation of a vortex domain during polarization ...

Universal properties of ferroelectric domains.

Based on the Ginzburg-Landau approach, we generalize the Kittel theory and derive the interpolation formula for the temperature evolution of a multidomain polarization profile P(x,z). We resolve the long-standing problem of the near-surface polarization behavior in ferroelectric domains and demonstrate polarization vanishing instead of the usually assumed fractal domain branching. We propose an...

"Oxygen-vacancy effect on structural, magnetic, and ferroelectric properties in multiferroic YMnO3 single crystals"