Chiral structures of electric polarization vectors quantified by X-ray resonant scattering

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 13; no. 1; p. 1769
• Main Authors: Kim, Kook Tae, McCarter, Margaret R., Stoica, Vladimir A., Das, Sujit, Klewe, Christoph, Donoway, Elizabeth P., Burn, David M., Shafer, Padraic, Rodolakis, Fanny, Gonçalves, Mauro A. P., Gómez-Ortiz, Fernando, Íñiguez, Jorge, García-Fernández, Pablo, Junquera, Javier, Susarla, Sandhya, Lovesey, Stephen W., van der Laan, Gerrit, Park, Se Young, Martin, Lane W., Freeland, John W., Ramesh, Ramamoorthy, Lee, Dong Ryeol
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 05.04.2022; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 119/118; 639/301/930/12; 639/766/119/996; Approximation; Atoms & subatomic particles; characterization and analytical techniques; Chirality; Elastic scattering; Electric polarization; Electronic structure; Ferroelectric materials; Ferroelectricity; ferroelectrics and multiferroics; Humanities and Social Sciences; Hypothetical particles; Laboratories; Lead titanates; MATERIALS SCIENCE; Mathematical analysis; multidisciplinary; Particle theory; Physics; Polar vortex; Polarization; Quadrupoles; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Spatial data; Strontium titanates; Superlattices; Tensors; Vortices; Wave dispersion; X-ray scattering; X-rays
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29359-5

Resonant elastic X-ray scattering (REXS) offers a unique tool to investigate solid-state systems providing spatial knowledge from diffraction combined with electronic information through the enhanced absorption process, allowing the probing of magnetic, charge, spin, and orbital degrees of spatial order together with electronic structure. A new promising application of REXS is to elucidate the chiral structure of electrical polarization emergent in a ferroelectric oxide superlattice in which the polarization vectors in the REXS amplitude are implicitly described through an anisotropic tensor corresponding to the quadrupole moment. Here, we present a detailed theoretical framework and analysis to quantitatively analyze the experimental results of Ti L -edge REXS of a polar vortex array formed in a PbTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 superlattice. Based on this theoretical framework, REXS for polar chiral structures can become a useful tool similar to x-ray resonant magnetic scattering (XRMS), enabling a comprehensive study of both electric and magnetic REXS on the chiral structures. The polar chiral texture of the vortex or skyrmion structure in ferroelectric oxide PbTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 superlattice attracts attention. Here, the authors report a theoretical framework to probe emergent chirality of electrical polarization textures.