Related papers: Atomic-scale compensation phenomena at polar inter…
The depolarization fields set up to due to uncompensated surface charges in a ferroelectric thin film can suppress the ferroelectric phase below a critical size. Recent experiments show that 180 degree domain structures can help to…
When a particle contacts a surface of another material, it is commonly believed that the particle acquires an impact charge that scales inversely with its pre-impact charge and whose polarity is set by the materials. We show that this…
Deterministic polarization reversal in ferroelectric and multiferroic films is critical for their exploitation in nanoelectronic devices. While ferroelectricity has been studied for nearly a century, major discrepancies in the reported…
We have tested the concept of image charge screening as a new approach to enhance magnetic ordering temperatures and superexchange interactions in ultra thin films. Using a 3 monolayer NiO(100) film grown on Ag(100) and an identically thin…
Screening of charge impurities in graphene is analyzed using the exact solution for vacuum polarization obtained from the massless Dirac-Kepler problem. For the impurity charge below certain critical value no density perturbation is found…
Motivated by the observed thickness-scaling of the coercive field in ferroelectric films over five decades, we develop a statistical approach towards understanding the conceptual underpinnings of this behavior. Here the scaling exponent is…
Electrostatic polarization is important in many nano-/micro-scale physical systems such as colloidal suspensions, biopolymers, and nanomaterials assembly. The calculation of polarization potential requires an efficient algorithm for solving…
The existence of ferroelectricity in {$\mathrm{BiMnO}_3$} has been a long-standing question for both experimentalists and theorists. In addition to a highly distorted bulk structure, the ionic crystal planes cause a large roughness in thin…
This note summarizes recent results in which modern techniques of the calculus of variations are used to obtain qualitative features of film-substrate interfaces for a broad class of interfacial energies. In particular, we show that the…
A three-dimensional topological insulator manifests gapless surface modes, described by two-dimensional Dirac equation. We study magnetic textures, such as domain walls and vortices, in a ferromagnetic thin film deposited on a…
The emergent behaviors in antiferroelectric thin films due to a coupling between surface electrochemistry and intrinsic polar instabilities are explored within the framework of the modified 2-4-6 Kittel-Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire (KLGD)…
Previous studies showed that, as ferroelectric films become thinner, their Curie temperature (Tc) and polarization below Tc both typically decrease. In contrast, a recent experiment [Chang et al., Science 353, 274 (2016)] observed that…
The interplay between electrochemical surface charges and bulk ferroelectricity in thin films gives rise to a continuum of coupled ferro-ionic states. These states are exquisitely sensitive to chemical and electric conditions at the…
Atomic-scale understanding of HfO2 ferroelectricity is important to help address many challenges in developing reliable and high-performance ferroelectric HfO2 (fe-HfO2) based devices. Though investigated from different angles, a factor…
Screening of a strongly charged macroion by multivalent counterions is considered. It is shown that counterions form a strongly correlated liquid at the surface of the macroion. Cohesive energy of this liquid leads to additional attraction…
Nanoscale electrostatic control of oxide interfaces enables physical phenomena and exotic functionalities beyond the realm of the bulk material. In technologically-relevant ferroelectric thin films, the interface-mediated polarization…
Using ab initio methods, we examine the the charge distribution at the interface of alpha-alumina-supported Pt films, and we consider the influence of this interface on CO adsorption. We demonstrate that a combination of electrostatic…
Electronic polarization is evaluated in pentacene crystals and in thin films on a metallic substrate using a self-consistent method for computing charge redistribution in non-overlapping molecules. The optical dielectric constant and its…
We develop a thermodynamic description of accumulation-layer heterostructures in which the induced sheet density is partitioned between the near-interface accumulation-layer charge and a complementary screening charge in the surrounding…
In this paper we study several means of compensating for thermal lensing which, otherwise, should be a source of concern for future upgrades of interferometric detectors of gravitational waves. The methods we develop are based on the…