Structural Evidence for Ultrafast Polarization Rotation in Ferroelectric/Dielectric Superlattice Nanodomains
Abstract
Weakly coupled ferroelectric/dielectric superlattice thin-film heterostructures exhibit complex nanoscale polarization configurations that arise from a balance of competing electrostatic, elastic, and domain-wall contributions to the free energy. A key feature of these configurations is that the polarization can locally have a significant component that is along the thin-film surface normal direction with an overall configuration maintaining zero net in-plane polarization. thin-film superlattice heterostructures on a conducting bottom electrode on have a room-temperature stripe nanodomain pattern with a nanometer-scale lateral period. Ultrafast time-resolved x-ray free electron laser diffraction and scattering experiments reveal that above-bandgap optical pulses induce propagating acoustic pulses and a perturbation of the domain diffuse scattering intensity arising from the nanoscale stripe domain configuration. With 400-nm optical excitation, two separate acoustic pulses are observed: a high-amplitude pulse resulting from strong optical absorption in the bottom electrode and a weaker pulse arising from the depolarization-field-screening effect due to absorption directly within the superlattice. The picosecond scale variation of the nanodomain diffuse scattering intensity is consistent with a larger polarization change than would be expected due to the polarization-tetragonality coupling of uniformly polarized ferroelectrics. The polarization change is consistent, instead, with polarization rotation facilitated by the reorientation of the in-plane component of the polarization at the domain boundaries of the striped polarization structure. The complex steady-state configuration within these ferroelectric heterostructures leads to ultrafast polarization rotation phenomena that have previously been available only through the selection of bulk crystal composition.
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Advanced Photon Source (APS); Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1812421
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1814749
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-04ER46147; AC02-06CH11357
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review. X
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Physical Review. X Journal Volume: 11 Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2160-3308
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; X-ray diffuse scattering; X-ray diffraction; photoexcitation; multilayer thin films; free-electron lasers; ferroelectrics; ultrafast optics; phonons; ferroelectricity; electric polarization
Citation Formats
Lee, Hyeon Jun, Ahn, Youngjun, Marks, Samuel D., Landahl, Eric C., Zhuang, Shihao, Yusuf, M. Humed, Dawber, Matthew, Lee, Jun Young, Kim, Tae Yeon, Unithrattil, Sanjith, Chun, Sae Hwan, Kim, Sunam, Eom, Intae, Park, Sang-Yeon, Kim, Kyung Sook, Lee, Sooheyong, Jo, Ji Young, Hu, Jiamian, and Evans, Paul G. Structural Evidence for Ultrafast Polarization Rotation in Ferroelectric/Dielectric Superlattice Nanodomains. United States: N. p., 2021.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031031.
Lee, Hyeon Jun, Ahn, Youngjun, Marks, Samuel D., Landahl, Eric C., Zhuang, Shihao, Yusuf, M. Humed, Dawber, Matthew, Lee, Jun Young, Kim, Tae Yeon, Unithrattil, Sanjith, Chun, Sae Hwan, Kim, Sunam, Eom, Intae, Park, Sang-Yeon, Kim, Kyung Sook, Lee, Sooheyong, Jo, Ji Young, Hu, Jiamian, & Evans, Paul G. Structural Evidence for Ultrafast Polarization Rotation in Ferroelectric/Dielectric Superlattice Nanodomains. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031031
Lee, Hyeon Jun, Ahn, Youngjun, Marks, Samuel D., Landahl, Eric C., Zhuang, Shihao, Yusuf, M. Humed, Dawber, Matthew, Lee, Jun Young, Kim, Tae Yeon, Unithrattil, Sanjith, Chun, Sae Hwan, Kim, Sunam, Eom, Intae, Park, Sang-Yeon, Kim, Kyung Sook, Lee, Sooheyong, Jo, Ji Young, Hu, Jiamian, and Evans, Paul G. Mon .
"Structural Evidence for Ultrafast Polarization Rotation in Ferroelectric/Dielectric Superlattice Nanodomains". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031031.
@article{osti_1812421,
title = {Structural Evidence for Ultrafast Polarization Rotation in Ferroelectric/Dielectric Superlattice Nanodomains},
author = {Lee, Hyeon Jun and Ahn, Youngjun and Marks, Samuel D. and Landahl, Eric C. and Zhuang, Shihao and Yusuf, M. Humed and Dawber, Matthew and Lee, Jun Young and Kim, Tae Yeon and Unithrattil, Sanjith and Chun, Sae Hwan and Kim, Sunam and Eom, Intae and Park, Sang-Yeon and Kim, Kyung Sook and Lee, Sooheyong and Jo, Ji Young and Hu, Jiamian and Evans, Paul G.},
abstractNote = {Weakly coupled ferroelectric/dielectric superlattice thin-film heterostructures exhibit complex nanoscale polarization configurations that arise from a balance of competing electrostatic, elastic, and domain-wall contributions to the free energy. A key feature of these configurations is that the polarization can locally have a significant component that is along the thin-film surface normal direction with an overall configuration maintaining zero net in-plane polarization. PbTiO3/SrTiO3 thin-film superlattice heterostructures on a conducting SrRuO3 bottom electrode on SrTiO3 have a room-temperature stripe nanodomain pattern with a nanometer-scale lateral period. Ultrafast time-resolved x-ray free electron laser diffraction and scattering experiments reveal that above-bandgap optical pulses induce propagating acoustic pulses and a perturbation of the domain diffuse scattering intensity arising from the nanoscale stripe domain configuration. With 400-nm optical excitation, two separate acoustic pulses are observed: a high-amplitude pulse resulting from strong optical absorption in the bottom electrode and a weaker pulse arising from the depolarization-field-screening effect due to absorption directly within the superlattice. The picosecond scale variation of the nanodomain diffuse scattering intensity is consistent with a larger polarization change than would be expected due to the polarization-tetragonality coupling of uniformly polarized ferroelectrics. The polarization change is consistent, instead, with polarization rotation facilitated by the reorientation of the in-plane component of the polarization at the domain boundaries of the striped polarization structure. The complex steady-state configuration within these ferroelectric heterostructures leads to ultrafast polarization rotation phenomena that have previously been available only through the selection of bulk crystal composition.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031031},
journal = {Physical Review. X},
number = 3,
volume = 11,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Aug 09 00:00:00 EDT 2021},
month = {Mon Aug 09 00:00:00 EDT 2021}
}
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.11.031031
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