Manipulating topological transformations of polar structures through real-time observation of the dynamic polarization evolution

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 4864 - 8
• Main Authors: Du, K., Zhang, M., Dai, C., Zhou, Z. N., Xie, Y. W., Ren, Z. H., Tian, H., Chen, L. Q., Van Tendeloo, Gustaaf, Zhang, Z.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 25.10.2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 147/137; 147/143; 147/28; 639/301/119/544; 639/301/119/996; 639/766/119/2792/4129; Bias; Electric fields; Energy; Engineering; Ferroelectric materials; Ferroelectricity; Ferromagnetism; Humanities and Social Sciences; Interfaces; Lead titanates; Linear polarization; Materials science; Microelectronics; Microscopy; multidisciplinary; Multilayers; Phase transitions; Polar vortex; Polarization; Real time; Science; Science & Technology - Other Topics; Science (multidisciplinary); Spirals; Strontium titanates; Symbiosis; Topology; Vortices
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12864-5

Topological structures based on controllable ferroelectric or ferromagnetic domain configurations offer the opportunity to develop microelectronic devices such as high-density memories. Despite the increasing experimental and theoretical insights into various domain structures (such as polar spirals, polar wave, polar vortex) over the past decade, manipulating the topological transformations of polar structures and comprehensively understanding its underlying mechanism remains lacking. By conducting an in-situ non-contact bias technique, here we systematically investigate the real-time topological transformations of polar structures in PbTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 multilayers at an atomic level. The procedure of vortex pair splitting and the transformation from polar vortex to polar wave and out-of-plane polarization are observed step by step. Furthermore, the redistribution of charge in various topological structures has been demonstrated under an external bias. This provides new insights for the symbiosis of polar and charge and offers an opportunity for a new generation of microelectronic devices. Direct observation of the dynamic evolution of polar domain structures at atomic level remains challenging. Here, the authors report the observation of real-time topological transformations of polar structures in PbTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 multilayers.