Tunable Nanoscale Evolution and Topological Phase Transitions of a Polar Vortex Supercrystal
Abstract
Understanding the phase transitions and domain evolutions of mesoscale topological structures in ferroic materials is critical to realizing their potential applications in next‐generation high‐performance storage devices. Here, the behaviors of a mesoscale supercrystal are studied with 3D nanoscale periodicity and rotational topology phases in a PbTiO3/SrTiO3 (PTO/STO) superlattice under thermal and electrical stimuli using a combination of phase‐field simulations and X‐ray diffraction experiments. A phase diagram of temperature versus polar state is constructed, showing the formation of the supercrystal from a mixed vortex and a‐twin state and a temperature‐dependent erasing process of a supercrystal returning to a classical a‐twin structure. Under an in‐plane electric field bias at room temperature, the vortex topology of the supercrystal irreversibly transforms to a new type of stripe‐like supercrystal. Under an out‐of‐plane electric field, the vortices inside the supercrystal undergo a topological phase transition to polar skyrmions. These results demonstrate the potential for the on‐demand manipulation of polar topology and transformations in supercrystals using electric fields. The findings provide a theoretical understanding that may be utilized to guide the design and control of mesoscale polar structures and to explore novel polar structures in other systems and their topological nature.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Feb 03, 2022
- Source ID
- 10.1002/adma.202106401
Entities
People
- Cheng Dai
- Haidan Wen
- John W Freeland
- Lane W Martin
- Long-Qing Chen
- Ramamoorthy Ramesh
- Sujit Das
- Venkatraman Gopalan
- Vladimir Alexandru Stoica
- Zijian Hong
Organizations
- Argonne National Laboratory
- Army Research Office
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Office of Basic Energy Sciences
- Office of Science
- Pennsylvania State University
- United States Department of Energy
- University of California
- Zhejiang University