Anomalously rotary polarization discovered in homochiral organic ferroelectrics

Peng-Fei Li, Yuan-Yuan Tang, Zhong-Xia Wang, Heng-Yun Ye (), Yu-Meng You and Ren-Gen Xiong ()
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Peng-Fei Li: Ordered Matter Science Research Center, Southeast University
Yuan-Yuan Tang: Ordered Matter Science Research Center, Southeast University
Zhong-Xia Wang: Ordered Matter Science Research Center, Southeast University
Heng-Yun Ye: Ordered Matter Science Research Center, Southeast University
Yu-Meng You: Ordered Matter Science Research Center, Southeast University
Ren-Gen Xiong: Ordered Matter Science Research Center, Southeast University

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Molecular ferroelectrics are currently an active research topic in the field of ferroelectric materials. As complements or alternatives of conventional inorganic ferroelectrics, they have been designed to realize various novel properties, ranging from multiferroicity and semiconductive ferroelectricity to ferroelectric photovoltaics and ferroelectric luminescence. The stabilizing of ferroelectricity in various systems is owing to the flexible tailorability of the organic components. Here we describe the construction of optically active molecular ferroelectrics by introducing homochiral molecules as polar groups. We find that the ferroelectricity in (R)-(−)-3-hydroxlyquinuclidinium halides is due to the alignment of the homochiral molecules. We observe that both the specific optical rotation and rotatory direction change upon paraelectric-ferroelectric phase transitions, due to the existence of two origins from the molecular chirality and spatial arrangement, whose contributions vary upon the transitions. The optical rotation switching effect may find applications in electro-optical elements.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13635

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