Probing local dipoles and ligand structure in BaTiO₃ nanoparticles

Improved routes for the preparation of nanoparticles, in conjunction with the development of more sophisticated structural probes for nanostructured materials, allows questions to be addressed regarding fundamental size limits on material properties. The property addressed here is structural off-centering, the molecular basis for the existence of switchable dipoles in polar materials, and whether it is turned off when particles become very small. This is probed using neutron scattering in a sample of free-standing, capped nanoparticles of the canonical perovskite ferroelectric, BaTiO₃, with sizes near 5 nm. The structure, analyzed in reciprocal and real space, reveals the atomic correlations of the nanoparticle oxide and the capping benzyloxy ligand groups, and allows careful comparison with the structure of bulk BaTiO₃. Even at these very small sizes, Ti is locally strongly off-centered, despite presenting cubic Bragg scattering.