Abstract
We present the experimental study of appearance of domain wall shape instabilities and self-assembled domain structures in uniaxial ferroelectrics lithium niobate and lithium tantalate covered by artificial dielectric layer. The domain structure evolution has been considered as a manifestation of nucleation processes similar to the first order phase transformation. The necessary conditions for formation of self-assembled domain structures including the highly non-equilibrium switching conditions and stability of concave angles were proposed. The formation of the self-assembled domain shape instabilities under application of the uniform external electric field during switching (domain growth) and backswitching (domain shrinkage) has been studied experimentally with these conditions fulfilled. The formation of the bumps at the vortexes of hexagon domain for diameter above 3 - 5 μm with subsequent oriented growth was obtained in stoichiometric lithium tantalate. The formation of quasi-regular fish-bone domain structure has been revealed during spontaneous backswitching in Mg doped lithium niobate. The resulted structure consisted of the narrow residual domains with width from 200 to 500 nm appeared as a result of finger growth to the center of hexagon domain. The obtained decreasing of the number of the residual domains during growth has been attributed to strong electrostatic interaction of domain walls.
Highlights
The study of kinetics of first order phase transitions in highly non-equilibrium conditions became extremely urgent [1]
It is known that the evolution of ferroelectric domains during polarization reversal can be considered as an analogy of the first-order phase transformation with electric field as a driving force [6,7]
In this paper we review the experimental studies of appearance and growth of domain wall shape instabilities and self-assembled domain structures in uniaxial ferroelectric LN and LT crystals (C3v symmetry) covered by uniform artificial surface dielectric layer
Summary
The study of kinetics of first order phase transitions in highly non-equilibrium conditions became extremely urgent [1]. 1. Introduction The study of kinetics of first order phase transitions in highly non-equilibrium conditions became extremely urgent [1]. The first order phase transitions including the crystallization from the melt poses the limited range of control parameters prohibiting the realization of all predicted types of structure in one system.
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