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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.11021 |
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| _version_ | 1866917087369232384 |
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| author | van der Veer, Ewout Sarott, Martin F. Eckstein, Jack T. Feringa, Stijn van der Veen, Dennis González, Johanna van Gent Ahmadi, Majid Cox, Horatio R. J. Kiens, Ellen M. Koster, Gertjan Kooi, Bart J. Carpenter, Michael A. Salje, Ekhard K. H. Noheda, Beatriz |
| author_facet | van der Veer, Ewout Sarott, Martin F. Eckstein, Jack T. Feringa, Stijn van der Veen, Dennis González, Johanna van Gent Ahmadi, Majid Cox, Horatio R. J. Kiens, Ellen M. Koster, Gertjan Kooi, Bart J. Carpenter, Michael A. Salje, Ekhard K. H. Noheda, Beatriz |
| contents | Bestowing CMOS-compatible binary oxides with additional functionalities is a powerful strategy toward the realization of oxide electronics. Ideal candidates are thin films which display a strong sensitivity to strain, chemical doping or nanoscale confinement. Among these, crystalline tungsten trioxide WO3 exhibits exceptional structural flexibility, enabling a wide range of functionalities. Here, we reveal the emergence of a previously unreported polar phase in epitaxial WO3 thin films. We accomplish this by imposing epitaxial shear strain, which stabilizes a low-symmetry triclinic structure that persists up to large film thicknesses and elevated temperatures. At the atomic scale, a change in the oxygen octahedral tilt pattern facilitates this symmetry lowering into a polar phase, which manifests as a periodic in-plane polarized stripe domain configuration with needle-like bifurcations at the microscale. The stripe domain walls further exhibit a strongly enhanced electrical conductivity in conjunction with a pronounced reduction of a distortive structural mode, providing the first experimental evidence for the formation of anti-distortive polarons recently predicted in WO3. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_11021 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Polarity and anti-distortive polarons in WO3 through epitaxial shear strain van der Veer, Ewout Sarott, Martin F. Eckstein, Jack T. Feringa, Stijn van der Veen, Dennis González, Johanna van Gent Ahmadi, Majid Cox, Horatio R. J. Kiens, Ellen M. Koster, Gertjan Kooi, Bart J. Carpenter, Michael A. Salje, Ekhard K. H. Noheda, Beatriz Materials Science Bestowing CMOS-compatible binary oxides with additional functionalities is a powerful strategy toward the realization of oxide electronics. Ideal candidates are thin films which display a strong sensitivity to strain, chemical doping or nanoscale confinement. Among these, crystalline tungsten trioxide WO3 exhibits exceptional structural flexibility, enabling a wide range of functionalities. Here, we reveal the emergence of a previously unreported polar phase in epitaxial WO3 thin films. We accomplish this by imposing epitaxial shear strain, which stabilizes a low-symmetry triclinic structure that persists up to large film thicknesses and elevated temperatures. At the atomic scale, a change in the oxygen octahedral tilt pattern facilitates this symmetry lowering into a polar phase, which manifests as a periodic in-plane polarized stripe domain configuration with needle-like bifurcations at the microscale. The stripe domain walls further exhibit a strongly enhanced electrical conductivity in conjunction with a pronounced reduction of a distortive structural mode, providing the first experimental evidence for the formation of anti-distortive polarons recently predicted in WO3. |
| title | Polarity and anti-distortive polarons in WO3 through epitaxial shear strain |
| topic | Materials Science |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.11021 |