Structural transitions and complex domain structures across a ferroelectric-to-antiferroelectric phase boundary in epitaxial Sm-doped BiFeO 3 thin films

By C. Cheng, D. Kan, S. Lim, W. McKenzie, P. Munroe, L. Salamanca-Riba, R. Withers, Ichiro Takeuchi, V. Nagarajan. 2009

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We have investigated structural phase transitions across a ferroelectric-to-antiferroelectric phase boundary in epitaxial (001) oriented ${\text{Bi}}_{(1\ensuremath{-}\text{x})}{\text{Sm}}_{\text{x}}{\text{FeO}}_{3}$ thin films. For the ${\text{Sm}}^{3+}$ concentration of $0.1\ensuremath{\le}x\ensuremath{\le}0.14$, we observe short-range antiparallel cation displacements, verified by the appearance of localized $\frac{1}{4}{011}$ weak reflections in the selected area electron diffraction patterns. At the critical composition of $x=0.14$, the system adopts a complex nanoscale domain mixture with appearance of $\frac{1}{4}{011}$, $\frac{1}{2}{011}$, $\frac{1}{2}{010}$, and $\frac{1}{2}{111}$ reflections and an incommensurate phase bridging the rhombohedral and orthorhombic phases. For compositions $0.14lxl0.2$, orientational twin domains coupled with antiphase oxygen octahedral tilts, identified by $\frac{1}{2}{hkl}$ weak superstructure are observed. The above systematic changes in the microstructure as a function of ${\text{Sm}}^{3+}$ doping are linked to the macroscopic functional properties.

Subfields: Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/df442141a2e55f67f77879e36ad0ee6a5029b010