Dresden 2017 – scientific programme

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DF: Fachverband Dielektrische Festkörper

DF 17: Ferroics - Domains, Domain Walls and Skyrmions IV

DF 17.12: Talk

Thursday, March 23, 2017, 13:15–13:30, WIL B321

Imaging of multiferroic domains at the optical resolution limit — •Stefan Günther, Martin Lilienblum, Thomas Lottermoser, and Manfred Fiebig — Department of Materials, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

Multiferroics accommodate strongly coupled electric and magnetic ordering. In a fundamental work on the hexagonal manganites (h-RMnO₃) from 2002, it was shown, that this coupling can extend to the electric and magnetic domain structure [1]. However, in those measurements the coupling was not resolved down to the archetypal ferroelectric vortex domain structure that was established for this system a decade later. In this talk, both type of domains (ferroelectric and antiferromagnetic) are resolved with second harmonic generation (SHG) in multiferroic h-ErMnO₃. As verified by piezo-response force microscopy the compound shows ferroelectric as-grown domains in the few µm-size and can thus be imaged with SHG close to the optical resolution limit. The measurements show the ferroelectric vortex domain structure, a partial coupling of magnetic and electric domain walls and give significantly new insights in the fine structure of antiferromagnetic domain walls. In particular, they demonstrate a thermally induced instability of these walls.

M. Fiebig et al., Nature 419, 818 (2002)