Strain control of domain-wall stability in epitaxial BiFeO3 (110) films.
We have studied the stability of domains and domain walls in multiferroic BiFeO3 thin films using a combination of piezoelectric force microscopy and phase-field simulations. We have discovered that a film-substrate misfit strain may result in a drastically different thermodynamic stability of two parallel domain walls with the same orientation. A fundamental understanding of the underlying physics, the stress distribution in a domain structure, leads to a novel approach to control the ferroelastic domain stability in the multiferroic BiFeO3 system.
Cruz
M P
MP
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Chu
Y H
YH
Zhang
J X
JX
Yang
P L
PL
Zavaliche
F
F
He
Q
Q
Shafer
P
P
Chen
L Q
LQ
Ramesh
R
R