Long-range Stripe Nanodomains in Epitaxial (110) BiFeO3 Thin Films on (100) NdGaO3 Substrate

Yogesh Sharma; Radhe Agarwal; Charudatta Phatak; Bumsoo Kim; Seokwoo Jeon; Ram S Katiyar; Seungbum Hong

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-05055-z

Long-range Stripe Nanodomains in Epitaxial (110) BiFeO₃ Thin Films on (100) NdGaO₃ Substrate

Sci Rep. 2017 Jul 7;7(1):4857. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-05055-z.

Authors

Yogesh Sharma^{1

2

3}, Radhe Agarwal², Charudatta Phatak¹, Bumsoo Kim^{1

4}, Seokwoo Jeon⁴, Ram S Katiyar², Seungbum Hong^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, 60439, USA.
² Department of Physics and Institute for Functional Nanomaterials, University of Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR, 00936, USA.
³ Materials Science and Technology Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 34141, Korea.
⁵ Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Lemont, IL, 60439, USA. seungbum@kaist.ac.kr.
⁶ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, 34141, Korea. seungbum@kaist.ac.kr.

Abstract

Here, we report the observation of ferroelectric and ferroelastic nanodomains in (110)-oriented BiFeO₃ (BFO) thin films epitaxially grown on low symmetric (100) NdGaO₃ (NGO) substrate. We observed long range ordering of ferroelectric 109° stripe nanodomains separated by periodic vertical domain walls in as-grown 130 nm thick BFO films. The effect of La_0.67Sr_0.33CoO₃ (LSCO) conducting interlayer on domain configurations in BFO/NGO film was also observed with relatively short range-ordering of stripe domains due to the modified electrostatic boundary conditions in BFO/LSCO/NGO film. Additional studies on B-site doping of Nb ions in BFO films showed change in the domain structures due to doping induced change in lattice anisotropy while maintaining the stripe domain morphology with 109° domain wall. This long-range array of ferroelectric and ferroelastic domains can be useful for optoelectronic devices and ferroelastic templates for strain coupled artificial magnetoelectric heterostructures.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.