Abstract

Electric switching of non-polar bulk crystals is shown to occur when domain walls are polar in ferroelastic materials and when rough surfaces with steps on an atomic scale promote domain switching. All domains emerging from surface nuclei possess polar domain walls. The progression of domains is then driven by the interaction of the electric field with the polarity of domain boundaries. In contrast, smooth surfaces with higher activation barriers prohibit effective domain nucleation. We demonstrate the existence of an electrically driven ferroelectric hysteresis loop in a non-ferroelectric, ferroelastic bulk material.

Details

Title
Ferroelectric switching in ferroelastic materials with rough surfaces
Author
Lu, Guangming 1 ; Li, Suzhi 2 ; Ding, Xiangdong 2 ; Sun, Jun 2 ; Ekhard K H Salje 1 

 State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China; Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK 
 State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China 
Pages
1-7
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Nov 2019
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2311222022
Copyright
© 2019. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.