Complex polar structures of incommensurate modulations (ICMs) are revealed in chemically modified PbZrO3 perovskite antiferroelectrics using advanced transmission electron microscopy techniques. The Pb-cation displacements, previously assumed to arrange in a fully-compensated antiparallel fashion, are found to be either antiparallel but with different magnitudes, or in a nearly orthogonal arrangement in adjacent stripes in the ICMs. Ab initio calculations corroborate the low-energy state of these arrangements. Our discovery corrects the atomic understanding of ICMs in PbZrO3-based perovskite antiferroelectrics.
@article{arxiv.1909.02536,
title = {Uncompensated Polarization in Incommensurate Modulations of Perovskite Antiferroelectrics},
author = {Tao Ma and Zhongming Fan and Bin Xu and Tae-Hoon Kim and Ping Lu and Laurent Bellaiche and Matthew J. Kramer and Xiaoli Tan and Lin Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.02536},
year = {2019}
}