SKM 2023 – scientific programme
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KFM: Fachverband Kristalline Festkörper und deren Mikrostruktur
KFM 4: Focus: Domains and Domainwalls in (Multi)Ferroic II
KFM 4.7: Talk
Tuesday, March 28, 2023, 11:40–12:10, POT 51
Ferrielectric phase boundaries in antiferroelectric lead zirconate — •Gustau Catalan1, Krystian Roleder2, and Ying Liu3 — 1ICREA and ICN2, Barcelona, Catalonia — 2Institute of Physics, University of Silesia in Katowice, Katowice, Poland — 3ICN2-Institut Catala de Nanociencia i Nanotecnologia, Barcelona, Catalonia
When antiferroelectric PbZrO3 is cooled down from the paraelectric phase, antiferroelectric domains nucleate and grow until they coalesce. Adjacent antiferroelectric domains can differ in the phase sequence of the antipolar arrangement, meaning that there is a polar discontinuity at the domain wall, also known as translational boundary or antiphase boundary. Using high resolution transmission electron microscopy, we have characterized such phase boundaries. We find that their internal structure is ferrielectric, with a basic unit cell that can be described as having two dipoles ion one direction and one in the antiparallel direction. We also find that such translational boundaries can cluster together, forming stripe domains of an incipient ferrielectric phase that can moreover be internally switched. We therefore propose that antiphase boundaries can act as the seed for a low-temperature ferrielectric phase that has been theoretically predicted and which might explain the remnant polarization sometimes observed as triple hysteresis loops in nominally antiferroelectric lead zirconate.