Manipulation of polar vortex chirality in oxide superlattices
Abstract
Topological polar vortices that are the electric analogues of magnetic objects, present great potential in applications of future nanoelectronics due to their nanometer size, anomalous dielectric response, and chirality. To enable the functionalities, it is prerequisite to manipulate the polar states and chirality by using external stimuli. Here, we probe the evolutions of polar state and chirality of polar vortices in PbTiO3/SrTiO3 superlattices under electric field by using atomically resolved in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy and phase-field simulations. We find that the adjacent clockwise and counterclockwise vortex usually have opposite chirality. The phase-field simulations suggest that the rotation reversal or axial polarization switching can lead to the chirality change. Guided by which, we experimentally validate that the vortex rotation direction can be changed by applying and subsequently removing of electric fields, offering a potential strategy to manipulate the vortex chirality. The revealed details of dynamic behavior for individual polar vortices at atomic scale and the proposed strategy for chirality manipulation provide fundamentals for future device applications.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2104.12310,
title = {Manipulation of polar vortex chirality in oxide superlattices},
author = {Pan Chen and Congbing Tan and Zhexin Jiang and Peng Gao and Yuanwei Sun and Xiaomei Li and Ruixue Zhu and Lei Liao and Xu Hou and Lifen Wang and Ke Qu and Ning Li and Xiaomin Li and Zhi Xu and Kaihui Liu and Wenlong Wang and Jinbin Wang and Xiaoping Ouyang and Xiangli Zhong and Jie Wang and Xuedong Bai},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.12310},
year = {2021}
}