Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Ferroelastic domains

Springy expansion

Nature Materials volume 15, pages 497–498 (2016)Cite this article

Subjects

The controllable and reversible growth of ferroelastic domains in a ferroelectric thin film with composition and strain gradients may enable new devices.

Ferroelectrics are insulating materials in which the alignment of electric dipoles occurs — causing polarization — and can be reversed in an electric field. Domain walls separate regions with different polarization orientations and are typically narrower than 5 nm (ref. 1). Interestingly, they can exhibit properties that are in stark contrast to the domain interior, including electrical conductivity2 and magnetism3. Thus, scientists recognized the potential of domain walls to form flexible nanoscale electronic elements, which can be written, moved and erased, for memory and logic devices. However, controlling the number of domain walls, their position and mobility is problematic, yet critical for practical devices. Ferroelastic walls, characterized by a rotation of the crystallographic unit cell leading to large local strains, were known to be essentially immobile4 until recently, when the avoidance of dislocations in the crystal lattice (which act as pinning centres for the walls) was found to enable electrical extinction of ferroelastic walls5. Now, writing in Nature Materials, Agar and colleagues6 demonstrate the controllable and reversible movement of ferroelastic domain walls when an electric field is applied via a force microscopy tip.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Schematic representation of the spring-like expansion of needle-shaped ferroelastic domains (dark blue) under a force microscopy tip in a compositionally graded ferroelectric film.

References

  1. Jia, C.-L., Urban, K. W., Alexe, M., Hesse, D. & Vrejoiu, I. Science 331, 1420–1423 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Guyonnet, J., Gaponenko, I., Gariglio, S. & Paruch, P. Adv. Mater. 23, 5377–5382 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Meier, D. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 27, 463003 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Nagarajan, V. et al. Nature Mater. 2, 43–47 (2003).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Feigl, L., McGilly, L. J., Sandu, C. S. & Setter, N. Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 172904 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Agar, J. C. et al. Nature Mater. 15, 549–556 (2016).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Gao, P. et al. Nature Commun. 5, 3801 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. O'Handley, R. C. J. Appl. Phys. 83, 3263 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kathrin Dörr is at the Institute of Physics at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 06099 Halle, Germany,

    Kathrin Dörr

Authors
  1. Kathrin Dörr
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kathrin Dörr.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Dörr, K. Springy expansion. Nature Mater 15, 497–498 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4596

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4596

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing