title: Strain control of domain-wall stability in epitaxial BiFeO3 (110) films.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: M P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Cruz
authors.forename: Y H
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Chu
authors.forename: J X
authors.initials: JX
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: P L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Zavaliche
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: He
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Shafer
authors.forename: L Q
authors.initials: LQ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ramesh