Related papers: Temperature dependent ferroelectricity in strained…
SrTiO3 is an incipient ferroelectric that is believed to exhibit a prototype displacive, soft mode ferroelectric transition when subjected to mechanical stress or alloying. We use high-angle annular dark-field imaging in scanning…
We investigate the variation of the spontaneous ferroelectric polarization with epitaxial strain for BaTiO$_3$, PbTiO$_3$, LiNbO$_3$, and BiFeO$_3$ using first principles calculations. We find that while the strain dependence of the…
The control of the in-plane domain evolution in ferroelectric thin films is not only critical to understanding ferroelectric phenomena but also to enabling functional device fabrication. However, in-plane polarized ferroelectric thin films…
Multiferroic BiFeO$_3$ (BFO) possesses a rich phase diagram that allows strain tuning of its properties in thin-film form. In particular, at large compressive strain, a supertetragonal (T) phase with giant polarization is stabilized over…
The interplay of electronic and structural degrees of freedom is a prominent feature of many quantum materials and of particular interest in systems with strong ferroelectric fluctuations, such as SrTiO$_3$ (STO) and KTaO$_3$ (KTO). Both…
The temperature-dependent polarization of SrTiO_3 thin films is investigated using confocal scanning optical microscopy. A homogeneous out-of-plane and inhomogeneous in-plane ferroelectric phase are identified from images of the linear…
We investigate the strain dependence of the ferroelectric polarization and the structure of the ferroelectric domain walls in the layered perovskite-related barium fluorides, BaMF$_4$ (M=Mg, Zn). The unusual "geometric ferroelectricity" in…
A fundamental understanding of the interplay between lattice structure, polarization and electrons is pivotal to the optical control of ferroelectrics. The interaction between light and matter enables the remote and wireless control of the…
Flexoelectricity - polarization induced by strain gradients - offers a route to polar functionality in centrosymmetric dielectrics, where traditional piezoelectric effects are absent. This study investigates the flexoelectric effect in…
Noncollinear ferroic materials are sought after as testbeds to explore the intimate connections between topology and symmetry, which result in electronic, optical and magnetic functionalities not observed in collinear ferroic materials. For…
The direction of ferroelectric polarization is prescribed by the symmetry of the crystal structure. Therefore, rotation of the polarization direction is largely limited, despite the opportunity it offers in understanding important…
We use first principles density functional theory calculations to investigate the effect of biaxial strain in the low-temperature structural and ferroelectric properties of [111]-oriented SrTiO$_3$. We find that [111] biaxial strain,…
We investigate the emergence of Bloch-type polarization components in 180$^\circ$ ferroelectric domain walls in bulk PbTiO$_{3}$ under varying mechanical boundary conditions, using first-principles simulations based on density functional…
We investigate the electrostrictive response across a ferroelectric phase transition from first-principles calculations and refute the prevailing view of constant electrostriction across the ferroelectric phase boundary. We take as a case…
Proximity to phase transitions (PTs) is frequently responsible for the largest dielectric susceptibilities in ferroelectrics. The impracticality of using temperature as a control parameter to reach those large responses has motivated the…
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…
The presence of domains in ferroic materials can negatively affect their macroscopic properties and hence their usefulness in device applications. From an experimental perspective, measuring materials comprising multiple domains can…
Understanding ferroelectricity is of both fundamental and technological importance to further stimulate the development of new materials designs and manipulations. Here, we perform an in-depth first-principle study on the well-known…
Strontium titanate is an incipient ferroelectric in which superconductivity emerges at exceptionally low doping levels. Remarkably, stabilizing the polar phase through strain or chemical substitution has been shown to significantly enhance…
We identify a first-order, isosymmetric transition between a ferrielectric (FiE) and ferroelectric (FE) state in $A$-site ordered LaScO$_{3}$/BiScO$_{3}$ and LaInO$_{3}$/BiInO$_{3}$ superlattices. Such a previously unreported ferroic…