Ferroelectricity Driven by Twisting of Silicate Tetrahedral Chains

Conventional perovskite-type ferroelectrics are based on octahedral units of oxygen, and often comprise toxic Pb to achieve robust ferroelectricity. Here, we report the ferroelectricity in a silicate-based compound, Bi2SiO5 (BSO), induced by a structural instability of the corresponding silicate tet...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2012-10
Main Authors: Taniguchi, Hiroki, Kuwabara, Akihide, Kim, Jungeun, Kim, Younghun, Moriwake, Hiroki, Kim, Sungwng, Hoshiyama, Takuya, Koyama, Tsukasa, Mori, Shigeo, Takata, Masaki, Hosono, Hideo, Inaguma, Yoshiyuki, Itoh, Mitsuru
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chains
Coercivity
Crystals
Ferroelectric materials
Ferroelectricity
First principles
Lead
Linear polarization
Perovskites
Phase transitions
Single crystals
Structural stability
Twisting
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Summary:Conventional perovskite-type ferroelectrics are based on octahedral units of oxygen, and often comprise toxic Pb to achieve robust ferroelectricity. Here, we report the ferroelectricity in a silicate-based compound, Bi2SiO5 (BSO), induced by a structural instability of the corresponding silicate tetrahedral chains. A low-energy phonon mode condenses at ~ 673 K to induce the proper ferroelectric phase transition. Polarization switching was observed in a BSO single crystal with a coercive field of 30 kV/cm and a spontaneous polarization of 0.3 microC/cm2 along a direction normal to the cleavage plane. The in-plane polarization was estimated by first principles calculations to be 23 microC/cm2. The present findings provide a new guideline for designing ferroelectric materials based on SiO4 tetrahedral units, which is ubiquitously found in natural minerals.
ISSN:2331-8422