Ferroelectric phase-transition frustration near a tricritical composition point

Xian-Kui Wei (), Sergei Prokhorenko, Bi-Xia Wang, Zenghui Liu, Yu-Juan Xie, Yousra Nahas, Chun-Lin Jia, Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski, Joachim Mayer, Laurent Bellaiche () and Zuo-Guang Ye ()
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Xian-Kui Wei: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Sergei Prokhorenko: University of Arkansas
Bi-Xia Wang: Simon Fraser University
Zenghui Liu: Xi’an Jiaotong University
Yu-Juan Xie: Simon Fraser University
Yousra Nahas: University of Arkansas
Chun-Lin Jia: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Joachim Mayer: Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
Laurent Bellaiche: University of Arkansas
Zuo-Guang Ye: Simon Fraser University

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Phase transition describes a mutational behavior of matter states at a critical transition temperature or external field. Despite the phase-transition orders are well sorted by classic thermodynamic theory, ambiguous situations interposed between the first- and second-order transitions were exposed one after another. Here, we report discovery of phase-transition frustration near a tricritical composition point in ferroelectric Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3. Our multi-scale transmission electron microscopy characterization reveals a number of geometrically frustrated microstructure features such as self-assembled hierarchical domain structure, degeneracy of mesoscale domain tetragonality and decoupled polarization-strain relationship. Associated with deviation from the classic mean-field theory, dielectric critical exponent anomalies and temperature dependent birefringence data unveil that the frustrated transition order stems from intricate competition of short-range polar orders and their decoupling to long-range lattice deformation. With supports from effective Hamiltonian Monte Carlo simulations, our findings point out a potentially universal mechanism to comprehend the abnormal critical phenomena occurring in phase-transition materials.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25543-1

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