Inverse Melting of Polar Order in Chemically Substituted BaTiO3

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Yang, Sung, Suk Hyun, Clement, Colin B., Cheong, Sang-Wook, Baggari, Ismail El
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Zhang, Yang
Sung, Suk Hyun
Clement, Colin B.
Cheong, Sang-Wook
Baggari, Ismail El
author_facet Zhang, Yang
Sung, Suk Hyun
Clement, Colin B.
Cheong, Sang-Wook
Baggari, Ismail El
contents In many condensed matter systems, long range order emerges at low temperatures as thermal fluctuations subside. In the presence of competing interactions or quenched disorder, however, some systems can show unusual configurations that become more disordered at low temperature, a rare phenomenon known as "inverse melting". Here, we discover an inverse melting of the polar order in a ferroelectric oxide with quenched chemical disorder (BaTi1-xZrxO3) through direct atomicscale visualization using in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy. In contrast to the clean BaTiO3 parent system in which long range order tracks lower temperatures, we observe in the doped system BaTi1-xZrxO3 that thermally driven fluctuations at high temperature give way to a more ordered state and then to a re-entrant disordered configuration at even lower temperature. Such an inverse melting of the polar order is likely linked to the random field generated by Zr dopants, which modulates the energy landscape arising from the competition between thermal fluctuations and random field pinning potential. These visualizations highlight a rich landscape of order and disorder in materials with quenched disorder, which may be key to understanding their advanced functionalities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_10445
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Inverse Melting of Polar Order in Chemically Substituted BaTiO3
Zhang, Yang
Sung, Suk Hyun
Clement, Colin B.
Cheong, Sang-Wook
Baggari, Ismail El
Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
In many condensed matter systems, long range order emerges at low temperatures as thermal fluctuations subside. In the presence of competing interactions or quenched disorder, however, some systems can show unusual configurations that become more disordered at low temperature, a rare phenomenon known as "inverse melting". Here, we discover an inverse melting of the polar order in a ferroelectric oxide with quenched chemical disorder (BaTi1-xZrxO3) through direct atomicscale visualization using in situ scanning transmission electron microscopy. In contrast to the clean BaTiO3 parent system in which long range order tracks lower temperatures, we observe in the doped system BaTi1-xZrxO3 that thermally driven fluctuations at high temperature give way to a more ordered state and then to a re-entrant disordered configuration at even lower temperature. Such an inverse melting of the polar order is likely linked to the random field generated by Zr dopants, which modulates the energy landscape arising from the competition between thermal fluctuations and random field pinning potential. These visualizations highlight a rich landscape of order and disorder in materials with quenched disorder, which may be key to understanding their advanced functionalities.
title Inverse Melting of Polar Order in Chemically Substituted BaTiO3
topic Disordered Systems and Neural Networks
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10445