Susarla Sandhya, Hsu Shanglin, Gómez-Ortiz Fernando, García-Fernández Pablo, Savitzky Benjamin H, Das Sujit, Behera Piush, Junquera Javier, Ercius Peter, Ramesh Ramamoorthy, Ophus Colin
National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, CA, USA.
Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, CA, USA.
Nat Commun. 2023 Jul 25;14(1):4465. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-40009-2.
Chirality or handedness of a material can be used as an order parameter to uncover the emergent electronic properties for quantum information science. Conventionally, chirality is found in naturally occurring biomolecules and magnetic materials. Chirality can be engineered in a topological polar vortex ferroelectric/dielectric system via atomic-scale symmetry-breaking operations. We use four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM) to map out the topology-driven three-dimensional domain walls, where the handedness of two neighbor topological domains change or remain the same. The nature of the domain walls is governed by the interplay of the local perpendicular (lateral) and parallel (axial) polarization with respect to the tubular vortex structures. Unique symmetry-breaking operations and the finite nature of domain walls result in a triple point formation at the junction of chiral and achiral domain walls. The unconventional nature of the domain walls with triple point pairs may result in unique electrostatic and magnetic properties potentially useful for quantum sensing applications.
材料的手性或旋性可作为一个序参量,用于揭示量子信息科学中涌现的电子特性。传统上,手性存在于天然存在的生物分子和磁性材料中。通过原子尺度的对称破缺操作,可以在拓扑极性涡旋铁电/介电系统中设计出手性。我们使用四维扫描透射电子显微镜(4D-STEM)来绘制拓扑驱动的三维畴壁,其中两个相邻拓扑畴的旋性会发生变化或保持不变。畴壁的性质由相对于管状涡旋结构的局部垂直(横向)和平行(轴向)极化的相互作用决定。独特的对称破缺操作和畴壁的有限性质导致在手性和非手性畴壁的交界处形成一个三重态。具有三重态对的畴壁的非常规性质可能导致潜在地对量子传感应用有用的独特静电和磁性特性。