Publication
Prediction of a low-temperature ferroelectric instability in antiphase domain boundaries of strontium titanate
Abstract
The structure of the antiphase domain boundaries of strontium titanate SrTiO3 that exist at temperatures below the antiferrodistortive transition, is analyzed. It is found that some boundaries are similar to Neel domain walls, as an additional component of the order parameter develops within them. We show quantitatively that at low temperatures, typically below similar to 40 K, such boundaries become unstable with respect to the development of a ferroelectric polarization. This ferroelectric transition might provide the much needed explanation for several anomalies that are experimentally observed in SrTiO3 in this temperature region.
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Related concepts (31)
Strontium titanate
Strontium titanate is an oxide of strontium and titanium with the chemical formula SrTiO3. At room temperature, it is a centrosymmetric paraelectric material with a perovskite structure. At low temperatures it approaches a ferroelectric phase transition with a very large dielectric constant ~104 but remains paraelectric down to the lowest temperatures measured as a result of quantum fluctuations, making it a quantum paraelectric.
Ferroelectricity
Ferroelectricity is a characteristic of certain materials that have a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reversed by the application of an external electric field. All ferroelectrics are also piezoelectric and pyroelectric, with the additional property that their natural electrical polarization is reversible. The term is used in analogy to ferromagnetism, in which a material exhibits a permanent magnetic moment. Ferromagnetism was already known when ferroelectricity was discovered in 1920 in Rochelle salt by Joseph Valasek.
Perovskite (structure)
A perovskite is any material with a crystal structure following the formula ABX3, which was first discovered as the mineral called perovskite, which consists of calcium titanium oxide (CaTiO3). The mineral was first discovered in the Ural mountains of Russia by Gustav Rose in 1839 and named after Russian mineralogist L. A. Perovski (1792–1856). 'A' and 'B' are two positively charged ions (i.e. cations), often of very different sizes, and X is a negatively charged ion (an anion, frequently oxide) that bonds to both cations.
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