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Title: Local atomic order and hierarchical polar nanoregions in a classical relaxor ferroelectric

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
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  1. National Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD (United States)
  2. European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), Grenoble (France)
  3. Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), Oxford (United Kingdom). Rutherford Appleton Lab. (RAL)
  4. Stony Brook Univ., NY (United States)

The development of useful structure-function relationships for materials that exhibit correlated nanoscale disorder requires adequately large atomistic models which today are obtained mainly via theoretical simulations. Here, we exploit our recent advances in structure-refinement methodology to demonstrate how such models can be derived directly from simultaneous fitting of 3D diffuse- and total-scattering data, and we use this approach to elucidate the complex nanoscale atomic correlations in the classical relaxor ferroelectric PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3 (PMN). Our results uncover details of ordering of Mg and Nb and reveal a hierarchical structure of polar nanoregions associated with the Pb and Nb displacements. The magnitudes of these displacements and their alignment vary smoothly across the nanoregion boundaries. No spatial correlations were found between the chemical ordering and the polar nanoregions. This work highlights a broadly applicable nanoscale structure-refinement method and provides insights into the structure of PMN that require rethinking its existing contentious models.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States). National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SC0012704
OSTI ID:
1547404
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
ENGLISH
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 61 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (3)

Opportunities and challenges in understanding complex functional materials journal October 2019
Doping of metal-free molecular perovskite with hexamethylenetetramine to create non-centrosymmetric defects journal January 2020
Atomic scale symmetry and polar nanoclusters in the paraelectric phase of ferroelectric materials text January 2020