Abstract
The insight into the three-dimensional configuration of ferroelectric ordering in ferroelectric nanomaterials is motivated by the application of the development of functional nanodevices and the structural designing. However, the atomic deciphering of the spatial distribution of ordered structure remains challenging for the limitation of dimension and probing techniques. In this paper, a neutron pair distribution function (nPDF) was utilized to analyze the spontaneous polarization distribution of zero-dimensional PbTiO3nanoparticles in three dimensions, via the application of reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modeling. The comprehensive identification with transmission electron microscopy verified the linear characteristics of polarization along the c-axis in the main body, while electric polarization distribution on the surface was enhanced abnormally. In addition, the correlation of dipole vectors extending to three unit cells below the surface is retained. This work shows an application of the micro/macroscale information to effectively decode the polarization structure of nanoferroelectrics, providing new views of designing nanoferroelectric devices.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 9405-9410 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Nano Letters |
Volume | 22 |
Issue number | 23 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Dec 14 2022 |
Funding
This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2020YFA0406202), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (22090042, 21731001, and 22175018), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M660446), and the Program for Postdoctoral Innovative Talents (BX20190031). The neutron total scattering experiments were performed at NOVA of the J-PARC under a user program (Proposal No. 2019A0038 and 2019A0168).
Keywords
- Ferroelectric order
- Nanomaterials
- Neutron pair distribution function (nPDF)
- Reverse Monte Carlo method (RMC)