Abstract
Ordering of mobile defects in functional materials can give rise to fundamentally new phases possessing ferroic and multiferroic functionalities. Here we develop the Landau theory for strain induced ordering of defects (e.g. oxygen vacancies) in thin oxide films, considering both the ordering and wavelength of possible instabilities. Using derived analytical expressions for the energies of various defect-ordered states, we calculated and analyzed phase diagrams dependence on the film-substrate mismatch strain, concentration of defects, and Vegard coefficients. Obtained results open possibilities to create and control superstructures of ordered defects in thin oxide films by selecting the appropriate substrate and defect concentration.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 22377 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2020 |
Funding
This material is based upon work (S.V.K.) supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and performed in the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, supported by the Division of Scientific User Facilities. This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) via the grant No. 405631895 (GE-1171/8-1). A portion of FEM was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility. M.V.S. also acknowledges Russian academic excellence project "5-100" for Sechenov University and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation State assignment 2020–2022 No. FSMR-2020-0018 (Proposal mnemonic code 0719-2020-0018). This project (A.N.M.) has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 778070 – TransFerr – H2020-MSCA-RISE-2017.