Abstract
Ferroelectric materials, upon electric field biasing, display polarization discontinuities known as Barkhausen jumps, a subclass of a more general phenomenon known as crackling noise. Herein, we follow and visualize in real time the motion of single 90° needle domains induced by an electric field applied in the polarization direction of the prototypical ferroelectric BaTiO_{3}, inside a transmission electron microscope. The nature of motion and periodicity of the Barkhausen pulses leads to distinctive interactions between domains forming a herringbone pattern. Remarkably, the tips of the domains do not come into contact with the body of the perpendicular domain, suggesting the presence of strong electromechanical fields around the tips of the needle domains. Additionally, interactions of the domains with the lattice result in relatively free movement of the domain walls through the dielectric medium, indicating that their motion-related activation energy depends only on weak Peierls-like potentials. Control over the kinetics of ferroelastic domain wall motion can lead to novel nanoelectronic devices pertinent to computing and data storage applications.
Highlights
Ferroelectric materials, upon electric field biasing, display polarization discontinuities known as Barkhausen jumps, a subclass of a more general phenomenon known as crackling noise
We follow and visualize in real time the motion of single 90° needle domains induced by an electric field applied in the polarization direction of the prototypical ferroelectric BaTiO3, inside a transmission electron microscope
The motion toward the equilibrium state is hindered by potential barriers that lead to nonmonotonous polarization change discontinuities referred to as Barkhausen effect [2,3,4,5,6]
Summary
Ferroelectric materials, upon electric field biasing, display polarization discontinuities known as Barkhausen jumps, a subclass of a more general phenomenon known as crackling noise. We follow and visualize in real time the motion of single 90° needle domains induced by an electric field applied in the polarization direction of the prototypical ferroelectric BaTiO3, inside a transmission electron microscope. These plots highly resemble traditional polarization-electric field (PE) loops, while conventionally measured PE loops show macroscopically averaged behavior, here, we follow the response locally on a single domain basis.
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