Pressure Control of Nonferroelastic Ferroelectric Domains in ErMnO 3

• Published in: Nano letters 2023-08, Vol.23 (15), p.6994-7000
• Main Authors: Sandvik, Olav W, Müller, Aaron Merlin, Ånes, Håkon W, Zahn, Manuel, He, Jiali, Fiebig, Manfred, Lottermoser, Thomas, Rojac, Tadej, Meier, Dennis, Schultheiß, Jan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.3c01638

Mechanical pressure controls the structural, electric, and magnetic order in solid-state systems, allowing tailoring of their physical properties. A well-established example is ferroelastic ferroelectrics, where the coupling between pressure and the primary symmetry-breaking order parameter enables hysteretic switching of the strain state and ferroelectric domain engineering. Here, we study the pressure-driven response in a nonferroelastic ferroelectric, ErMnO , where the classical stress-strain coupling is absent and the domain formation is governed by creation-annihilation processes of topological defects. By annealing ErMnO polycrystals under variable pressures in the MPa regime, we transform nonferroelastic vortex-like domains into stripe-like domains. The width of the stripe-like domains is determined by the applied pressure as we confirm by three-dimensional phase field simulations, showing that pressure leads to oriented layer-like periodic domains. Our work demonstrates the possibility to utilize mechanical pressure for domain engineering in nonferroelastic ferroelectrics, providing a lever to control their dielectric and piezoelectric responses.