Journal Article

FZJ-2021-04985

http://join2-wiki.gsi.de/foswiki/pub/Main/Artwork/join2_logo100x88.png Ferroelectric phase-transition frustration near a tricritical composition point

Wei, X.-K. (Corresponding author)FZJ* ; Prokhorenko, S. ; Wang, B.FZJ* ; Liu, Z. ; Xie, Y.-J. ; Nahas, Y. ; Jia, C.-L.FZJ* ; Dunin-Borkowski, R. E.FZJ* ; Mayer, J.FZJ* ; Bellaiche, L. ; Ye, Z.-G. (Corresponding author)

2021
Nature Publishing Group UK [London]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: http://hdl.handle.net/2128/29415  doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25543-1

Abstract: Phase transition describes a mutational behavior of matter states at a critical transition temperature or external field. Despite the phase-transition orders are well sorted by classic thermodynamic theory, ambiguous situations interposed between the first- and second-order transitions were exposed one after another. Here, we report discovery of phase-transition frustration near a tricritical composition point in ferroelectric Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3. Our multi-scale transmission electron microscopy characterization reveals a number of geometrically frustrated microstructure features such as self-assembled hierarchical domain structure, degeneracy of mesoscale domain tetragonality and decoupled polarization-strain relationship. Associated with deviation from the classic mean-field theory, dielectric critical exponent anomalies and temperature dependent birefringence data unveil that the frustrated transition order stems from intricate competition of short-range polar orders and their decoupling to long-range lattice deformation. With supports from effective Hamiltonian Monte Carlo simulations, our findings point out a potentially universal mechanism to comprehend the abnormal critical phenomena occurring in phase-transition materials.

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Contributing Institute(s):

1. Materialwissenschaft u. Werkstofftechnik (ER-C-2)

Research Program(s):

1. 5353 - Understanding the Structural and Functional Behavior of Solid State Systems (POF4-535) (POF4-535)
2. DFG project 390534769 - EXC 2004: Materie und Licht für Quanteninformation (ML4Q) (390534769) (390534769)

Appears in the scientific report 2021

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