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Published June 2003 | public
Journal Article

Direct measurement of triaxial strain fields around ferroelectric domains using X-ray microdiffraction

Abstract

Ferroelectric materials, such as BaTiO_3, have piezoelectric properties that make them attractive for microelectronic and sensing applications. It is well known that the application of mechanical stress or electric field can alter the domain structure in ferroelectrics. Indeed, the constitutive behaviour of a ferroelectric is largely governed by the formation, movement and interaction of its domains. Therefore, it is crucial that the micromechanics of domains and their effect on internal stresses in ferroelectrics be understood. Here we show that the emerging technique of scanning X-ray microdiffraction can be used to measure directly, for the first time, the local triaxial strain fields around 90° domains in single-crystal BaTiO_3. Specifically, residual strain maps in a region surrounding an isolated, approximately 40 µm wide, 90° domain were obtained with 3 µm resolution, revealing significant residual strains. This information is critical for accurate micromechanical modelling of domain behaviour in ferroelectrics.

Additional Information

© 2003 Nature Publishing Group. Published online: 18 May 2003. R. C. Rogan is supported by the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative at Caltech on Engineering Microstructural Complexity in Ferroelectric Devices (Army Research Office grant no. DAAD19-01-1-0517). E. Üstündag is partially funded by the National Science Foundation (CAREER grant no. DMR-9985264). The Advanced Light Source is supported by Office of Basic Energy Sciences, the US Department of Energy under contract no. DE-AC03-76SF00098. The BaTiO3 specimen was provided by G. Ravichandran from the Caltech Corporation. Insightful discussions with K. Bhattacharya and W. Zhang are gratefully acknowledged.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023