Symmetry-breaking Defects Research Articles

A scaling limit for line and surface defects

We study symmetry-breaking line defects in the Wilson-Fisher theory with O(2N + 1) global symmetry near four dimensions and symmetry-preserving surface defects in a cubic model with O(2N) global symmetry near six dimensions. We introduce a scaling limit inspired by the large charge expansion in Conformal Field Theory. Using this, we compute the beta function for the defect coupling which allows to identify the corresponding Defect Conformal Field Theories. We also compute the correlation function of two parallel defects as well as correlation functions of certain defect operators with large charge under the surviving symmetry.

Critical crossover phenomena driven by symmetry-breaking defects at quantum transitions.

We study the effects of symmetry-breaking defects at continuous quantum transitions (CQTs) of homogeneous systems, which may arise from localized external fields coupled to the order-parameter operator. The problem is addressed within renormalization-group (RG) and finite-size scaling frameworks. We consider the paradigmatic one-dimensional quantum Ising models at their CQT, in the presence of defects which break the global Z_{2} symmetry. We show that such defects can give rise to notable critical crossover regimes where the ground-state properties experience substantial and rapid changes, from symmetric conditions to characterization of these crossover phenomena driven by defects. In particular, this is demonstrated by analyzing the ground-state fidelity associated with small changes of the defect strength. Within the critical crossover regime, the fidelity susceptibility shows a power-law divergence when increasing the system size, related to the RG dimension of the defect strength; in contrast, outside the critical defect regime, it remains finite. We support the RG scaling arguments with numerical results.

Breaking symmetry for piezoelectricity.

Record-breaking piezoelectricity is achieved in oxides with symmetry-breaking defects.

Topological cavities in phononic plates for robust energy harvesting

Piezoelectric energy harvesting has attracted tremendous interest for designing sustainable self-powered devices/systems targeted to special environment such as wireless or wearable applications. The traditional cavity (e.g., phononic cavity mode) excitation is highly applicable in terms of sufficient power generation, nevertheless, has to endure the drawback of extremely poor robustness intrinsic to the trivial cavity modes. We propose to use phononic thin plate systems for robust energy harvesting application relying on zero-dimensional cavities confined by the Kekulé distorted topological vortices. The harvesting power induced by topological cavities is about 30 times that of the bare plate. Further studies on the effects of deliberately introduced defects on the output power show that the proposed energy harvesting system is highly robust against symmetry-preserving defects, and is less influenced even for symmetry-breaking defects at moderate perturbation level. Beyond the reported energy harvesting application, we foresee that our work may open avenues for robust operations in the realm of wireless sensing and structural health monitoring.

Modeling Strain Distribution at the Atomic Level in Doped Ceria Films with Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure Spectroscopy.

Ceria doped with trivalent dopants exhibits nonclassical electrostriction, strong anelasticity, and room-temperature (RT) mechanical creep. These phenomena, unexpected for a ceramic material with a large Young's modulus, have been attributed to the generation of local strain in the vicinity of the host Ce cations due to symmetry-breaking point defects, including oxygen vacancies. However, understanding why strain is generated at the host rather than at the dopant site, as well as predicting these effects as a function of dopant size and concentration, remains a challenge. We have used the evolutionary-algorithm-based reverse Monte Carlo modeling to reconcile the experimental data of extended X-ray absorption fine structure and X-ray diffraction in a combined model structure. By extracting the details of the radial distribution function (RDF) around the host (Ce) and trivalent dopants (Sm or Y), we find that RDF of the first-nearest neighbor (1NN) of host and dopant cations as well as the second-nearest neighbor (2NN) of the dopant are each best modeled with two separate populations corresponding to short and long interatomic distances. This heterogeneity indicates that fluorite symmetry is not preserved locally, especially for the dopant first-and second-NN sites, appearing at surprisingly low doping fractions (5 mol % Sm and 10 mol % Y). Given that Ce rather than dopant sites act as the source of local strain for electrostriction and RT creep, we conclude that the environment around the dopant does not respond to electrical and mechanical excitations, likely because of its similarity to the double fluorite structure which has poor electrostrictive and anelastic properties. The trends we observe in the RDFs around the Ce sites as a function of dopant size and concentration suggest that the response of these sites can be controlled by the extent of doping: Increasing dopant size to increase strain magnitude at the 1NN shell of Ceand decreasing dopant fraction to decrease strain propagation to the 2NN shell of Ceshould produce stronger electrostrictive response and RT creep.

Effects of nitrogen-dopant bonding states on liquid-flow-induced electricity generation of graphene: A comparative study

Abstract We fabricate, measure and compare the effects of the bonding states of dopant nitrogen atoms in graphene devices, specifically on the liquid-flow-induced electricity by these devices. We find that nitrogen doping enhances the voltage induced by liquid flow regardless of the nitrogen bonding state. However, different nitrogen bonding states affect graphene’s conductivity differently: while graphitic nitrogen is suitable for electricity-generation applications, pyridinic nitrogen is hopeless for this purpose, due to the formation of symmetry-breaking defects of the latter.

Manifestation of Planar and Bulk Chirality Mixture in Plasmonic Λ-Shaped Nanostructures Caused by Symmetry Breaking Defects

We report on the coexistence of planar and bulk chiral effects in plasmonic Λ-shaped nanostructure arrays arising from symmetry breaking defects. The manifestation of bi- (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) chiral effects are revealed by means of polarization tomography and confirmed by symmetry considerations of the experimental Jones matrix. Notably, investigating the antisymmetric and symmetric parts of the Jones matrix points out the contribution of 2D and 3D chirality in the polarization conversion induced by the system whose eigenpolarizations attest to the coexistence of planar and bulk chirality. Furthermore, we introduce a generalization of the microscopic model of Kuhn, yielding to a physical picture of the origins of the observed planar chirality, circular birefringence, and dichroism, theoretically prohibited in symmetric Λ-shaped nanostructures.

Length Scale and Dimensionality of Defects in Epitaxial SnTe Topological Crystalline Insulator Films

Topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) are new materials with metallic surface states protected by crystal symmetry. The properties of molecular beam epitaxy grown SnTe TCI on SrTiO3(001) are investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), noncontact atomic force microscopy, low‐energy and reflection high‐energy electron diffraction, X‐ray diffraction, Auger electron spectroscopy, and density functional theory. Initially, SnTe (111) and (001) surfaces are observed; however, the (001) surface dominates with increasing film thickness. The films grow island‐by‐island with the [011] direction of SnTe (001) islands rotated up to 7.5° from SrTiO3 [010]. Microscopy reveals that this growth mechanism induces defects on different length scales and dimensions that affect the electronic properties, including point defects (0D); step edges (1D); grain boundaries between islands rotated up to several degrees; edge‐dislocation arrays (2D out‐of‐plane) that serve as periodic nucleation sites for pit growth (2D in‐plane); and screw dislocations (3D). These features cause variations in the surface electronic structure that appear in STM images as standing wave patterns and a nonuniform background superimposed on atomic features. The results indicate that both the growth process and the scanning probe tip can be used to induce symmetry breaking defects that may disrupt the topological states in a controlled way.

Inducing a Finite In-Plane Piezoelectricity in Graphene with Low Concentration of Inversion Symmetry-Breaking Defects

We show that a finite in-plane piezoelectricity can be induced in graphene by breaking its inversion center with any in-plane defect, in the limit of vanishing defect concentration. We first consider different patterns of BN-doped graphene sheets of D3h symmetry, whose electronic and piezoelectric (dominated by the electronic rather than nuclear term) properties are characterized at the ab initio level of theory. We then consider other in-plane defects, such as holes of D3h or C2v point symmetry, and confirm that a common limit value (for low defect concentration) of the piezoelectric response of graphene is obtained regardless of the particular chemical or physical nature of the defects (e11 ≈ 4.5 × 10–10 C/m and d11 ≈ 1.5 pm/V for direct and converse piezoelectricity, respectively). This in-plane piezoelectric response of graphene is one-order of magnitude larger than the out-of-plane previously investigated one.

Accounting for Nonlinearities in Open-Loop Protocols for Symmetry Fault Compensation

In this paper, we consider model examples of dynamical systems with only a few degrees of freedom, and with desirable symmetry properties, and explore compensating control strategies for retaining robust symmetric system response even under symmetry-breaking defects. The analysis demonstrates the distinct differences between linear versions of these models, in which fault-compensating strategies are always found, and weakly nonlinear counterparts with varying degrees of asymmetry, for which a multitude of locally optimal solutions may coexist. We further formulate a candidate optimization protocol for fault compensation applied to self-healing systems, which respond to symmetry-breaking defects by a continuous process of fault correction. The analysis shows that such a protocol may exhibit discontinuous changes in the control strategy as the self-healing system successively regains its original symmetry properties. In addition, it is argued that upon return to a symmetric configuration, such a protocol may result in a different control strategy from that applied prior to the occurrence of a fault.

Guided resonances in photonic crystals with point-defected aperiodically-ordered supercells

In this paper, we study the excitation of guided resonances (GRs) in photonic-crystal slabs based on point-defected aperiodically-ordered supercells. With specific reference to perforated-slab structures and the Ammann-Beenker octagonal lattice geometry, we carry out full-wave numerical studies of the plane-wave responses and of the underlying modal structures, which illustrate the representative effects induced by the introduction of symmetry-preserving and symmetry-breaking defects. Our results demonstrate that breaking the supercell mirror symmetries via the judicious introduction of point-defects enables for the excitation of otherwise uncoupled GRs, with control on the symmetry properties of their field distributions, thereby constituting an attractive alternative to those GR-engineering approaches based on the asymmetrization of the hole shape. In this framework, aperiodically-ordered supercells seem to be inherently suited, in view of the variety of inequivalent defect sites that they can offer.

Symmetry-breaking defect in coupled dipole–proton system of hydrogen-bonded ferroelectric

We consider the coupled dipole–proton system of hydrogen-bonded ferroelectric crystal with one defect dipole that is coupled more strongly with the protons than the original dipole. This defect dipole simulates the symmetry-breaking defects that are often introduced in the crystals as probes in the electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) experiments. A particular attention is paid to the explanation of strong isotope effects that have been detected in the measurements of static and dynamic properties of the pure crystals and the symmetry-breaking defects. We suppose that the isotope effects are caused by the isotope-dependent tunneling energy and we analyze behavior of the system with and without the defect in two adiabatic approximations that correspond to the case when the protons tunnel faster than the dipoles oscillate and to the opposite case. These two approximations lead to the two models which predict different properties the pure crystals and the symmetry-breaking defects.

UV light‐induced absorption in pure KTaO 3 at low temperature

Pure KTaO3 with cubic symmetry down to lowest temperatures is a model incipient ferroelectric exhibiting the existence of intrinsic inversion symmetry breaking defects in a wide range of experiments. At low temperature a strong second harmonic generation (SHG) of Nd:YAG laser light is observed, despite the overall cubic symmetry of the crystal. Under excitation with UV-light in the band gap region (about 330 nm (3.7 eV)) a strong green luminescence (GL, at 510 nm (2.43 eV)) appears with excitation maximum near 330 nm (3.7 eV). Both, SHG and GL depend strongly on previous oxidation/reduction treatments, increasing with the reduction. In absorption at low temperature broad bands peaking at 1.2 eV and at 1.5 eV are observed in reduced KTaO3 samples. Additional UV-illumination in the band gap region at low temperature gives rise to broad light-induced absorption bands in the same 1–2 eV region. These observations are being discussed on the basis of polaronic holes, of charge transfer vibronic exitons (CTVEs) and of CTVE clusters interacting with oxygen vacancies. (© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

Possible mechanism for glass-like thermal conductivities in crystals with off-center atoms

In the filled Ga/Ge clathrate, Eu and Sr are off-center in site 2 but Ba is on-center. All three filler atoms (Ba,Eu,Sr) have low temperature Einstein modes; yet only for the Eu and Sr systems is there a large dip in the thermal conductivity, attributed to the Einstein modes. No dip is observed for Ba. Here we argue that it is the off-center displacement that is crucial for understanding this unexplained difference in behavior. It enhances the coupling between the "rattler" motion and the lattice phonons for the Eu and Sr systems, and turns on/off another scattering mechanism (for 1K < T < 20K) produced by the presence/absence of off-center sites. The random occupation of different off-center sites produces a high density of symmetry-breaking defects which scatters phonons. It may also be important for improving our understanding of other glassy systems.

Effect of crystallinity on the dielectric loss of sputter-deposited (Ba,Sr)TiO3 thin films in the microwave range

The crystallinity dependence of the microwave dielectric losses in (Ba,Sr)TiO3 thin films was investigated. The sputter-deposition temperatures were altered to vary the level of thin-film crystallinity on a Pt/Si substrate. The dielectric losses (tan δ) were measured up to 6 GHz without parasitic (stray) effects by using a circular-patch capacitor geometry and an equivalent-circuit model. The microwave dielectric losses increased from 0.0024 ± 0.0018 to 0.0102 ± 0.0017 with increasing crystallinity. These deteriorated dielectric losses showed a good correlation with the symmetry-breaking defects, as confirmed by Raman spectra at approximately 760 cm−1, inducing microscopic polar regions above the Curie temperature of the bulk (Ba0.43Sr0.57)TiO3.

Influence of Defects on First Order Structural Phase Transitions

The influence both of symmetry-breaking ("random local field") defects and of symmetry conserving ("random local transition temperature") ones on first order phase transitions is studied within the Landau theory. It is shown that an explicit account, for the elasticity effects, is important in the case of symmetry-breaking defects: the discontinuity of the order parameter at the transition increases due to the defects when the elasticity effects are taken into account but it decreases when they are neglected. For the symmetry-conserving defects, the account for the elasticity does not change the results qualitatively: the defects always diminish the discontinuity of the order parameter. The phase transition temperature always decreases due to the randomness induced by the two types of defects.

Investigations on KTN thin films by XRD, XPS and micro raman spectroscopy

The renewed interest in KTa1−xNbxO (KTN) mixed perovskite materials, especially in thin films of a high quality, is connected with their remarkable dielectric properties in the dilute compositions. Off-center Nb ions in the highly polarizable KTaO3 lattice provide a drastic increase in the dielectric peak up to 20 times in comparison with pure KTaO3 and KNbO3. This paper reports a continuation of KTN thin films studies with several Nb concentrations in the range of 0 ≤ x ≤ 1 prepared by pulsed laser deposition from segmented KTaO3, KNbO3 and KNO3 targets. The effect of the substrate and symmetry-breaking defects was studied by micro-Raman spectroscopy. An anomalous residual intensity of the forbidden first-order scattering modes in the cubic paraelectric phase of the KTN films was connected with the formation of polar microregions even far above the bulk Tc value. On the whole, the KTN film behavior shows the existence of specific defects enlarging the perovskite unit cell in the film so that the activity of off-center Nb ions increases in producing larger electric dipoles and extending the precursor phase above Tc.

Spatially resolved second-harmonic generation in ABO 3-type ferroelectric crystals

ABO 3-type ferroelectric crystals are increasingly in demand for electro-optical applications, like waveguide lasers, modulators or volume holographic storage devices. The properties of most of these materials can be widely tuned by varying composition and doping. This in turn necessitates suitable methods for checking the results of such optimization attempts. Second harmonic generation (SHG)-techniques can be used for nondestructive testing of crystal composition, homogeneity, doping concentration profiles and phase matching conditions. Several SHG-methods (colinear, noncolinear and microscopic techniques) can be employed to reach two- or even three-dimensional spatial resolution in the range of micron dimensions. On the background of inversion symmetry of the host material, as for instance in incipient ferroelectric crystals SrTiO 3 or KTaO 3, also the influence and distribution of inversion symmetry breaking defects and defect-induced phase transitions may be detected as well as the influence of external parameters (electric field, uniaxial stress or temperature). Examples for LiNbO 3 (congruent or stoichiometric composition), for KNbO 3 doped with Ta and for KTaO 3 doped with Li will demonstrate the limits and possibilities of above techniques for specific systems.

Raman spectroscopy of KTN thin films

The renewed interest in the KTa1-x-NbxO (KTN) mixed perovskite materials, especially in single crystalline thin film forms, is connected with their remarkable dielectric properties in the dilute compositions. Off-center Nb ions in the highly polarizable KTaO3 lattice provide a drastic increase in the dielectric peak up to 20 times in comparison with pure KTaO3 and KNbO3. KTN thin films with several Nb concentrations were prepared in the range 0 ≤ × ≤ 1 by pulsed laser deposition. The films were deposited onto MgO substrate. The effect of a substrate and symmetry-breaking defects was studied by micro-Raman spectroscopy. An anomalous residual intensity of the forbidden first-order scattering modes in the cubic paraelectric phase of the KTN films was connected with formation of polar microregions even far above the bulk Tc. On the whole, the KTN film behavior shows the existence of specific defects enhancing the unit perovskite cell in the film so that the activity of off-center Nb ions increases in producing larger electric dipoles and extending the precursor phase above Tc.

The long-time correlations induced by defects in the quantum paraelectrics and

The long-time correlations of fluctuations of lattice displacements in the quantum paraelectrics and are studied within the framework of the mode-coupling theory of the dynamic transition from an ergodic to a non-ergodic state caused by defects. It is shown that the very hard local non-symmetry-breaking defects formed by the oxygen vacancies can induce the dynamic transition at . The low-temperature non-ergodic state is characterized by long-time correlations of local fluctuations of the polar displacements, which continuously arise for . Simultaneously, the local non-symmetry-breaking defects lead to the appearance of long-time correlations of long-wavelength fluctuations of acoustic displacements via the local random piezoelectric coupling for . The random local piezoelectric coupling is caused by the electrostrictive interaction, which is modified by the random electric fields of the frozen symmetry-breaking defects. The conditions that must be met for the dynamic transition to be induced by the oxygen vacancies are analysed. It is also shown that the unavoidable oxygen vacancies in the nominally pure and are quite sufficient in number to cause the non-ergodic state. The role of the dynamic transition in the formation of the glass state for lightly doped and is discussed.