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Main Authors: Yoshida, Suguru, Hernandez, Olivier, Miyake, Jinsuke, Nakayama, Kei, Ishikawa, Ryo, Hojo, Hajime, Ikuhara, Yuichi, Gopalan, Venkatraman, Tanaka, Katsuhisa, Fujita, Koji
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01241
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author Yoshida, Suguru
Hernandez, Olivier
Miyake, Jinsuke
Nakayama, Kei
Ishikawa, Ryo
Hojo, Hajime
Ikuhara, Yuichi
Gopalan, Venkatraman
Tanaka, Katsuhisa
Fujita, Koji
author_facet Yoshida, Suguru
Hernandez, Olivier
Miyake, Jinsuke
Nakayama, Kei
Ishikawa, Ryo
Hojo, Hajime
Ikuhara, Yuichi
Gopalan, Venkatraman
Tanaka, Katsuhisa
Fujita, Koji
contents While defects are unavoidable in crystals and often detrimental to material performance, they can be a key ingredient for inducing functionalities when tailored. Here, we demonstrate that an A-site-deficient perovskite Y$_{1/3}$TaO$_3$ exhibits room-temperature ferroelectricity in a $Pb2_1m$ phase, enabled by ordered vacancies coupled with TaO$_6$ octahedral rotations. Defect-ordered perovskites are frequently trapped in centrosymmetric incommensurate states due to competing structural instabilities; we circumvent this by favoring rotational over polar instability through compositional selection. Unlike canonical improper ferroelectrics that are \textit{ferrielectric}, the vanishing dipoles on vacancy layers in Y$_{1/3}$TaO$_3$ allow for a net ferroelectric alignment of local dipoles, resulting in enhanced polarization. Upon heating, Y$_{1/3}$TaO$_3$ transforms to a paraelectric incommensurate phase at $\simeq$750 K, whose atomic arrangement mirrors the domain topology observed in hybrid improper ferroelectrics. Superspace analysis of the modulated phase reveals a route to improve room-temperature polarization, achieved through epitaxial strain, as confirmed by our lattice-dynamics calculations. This defect-ordering strategy should be generalizable to other improper ferroelectrics, including magnetoelectric multiferroics, providing a pathway to amplify otherwise limited macroscopic polarization.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_01241
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Switchable Polarization in an A-site Deficient Perovskite through Vacancy and Cation Engineering
Yoshida, Suguru
Hernandez, Olivier
Miyake, Jinsuke
Nakayama, Kei
Ishikawa, Ryo
Hojo, Hajime
Ikuhara, Yuichi
Gopalan, Venkatraman
Tanaka, Katsuhisa
Fujita, Koji
Materials Science
While defects are unavoidable in crystals and often detrimental to material performance, they can be a key ingredient for inducing functionalities when tailored. Here, we demonstrate that an A-site-deficient perovskite Y$_{1/3}$TaO$_3$ exhibits room-temperature ferroelectricity in a $Pb2_1m$ phase, enabled by ordered vacancies coupled with TaO$_6$ octahedral rotations. Defect-ordered perovskites are frequently trapped in centrosymmetric incommensurate states due to competing structural instabilities; we circumvent this by favoring rotational over polar instability through compositional selection. Unlike canonical improper ferroelectrics that are \textit{ferrielectric}, the vanishing dipoles on vacancy layers in Y$_{1/3}$TaO$_3$ allow for a net ferroelectric alignment of local dipoles, resulting in enhanced polarization. Upon heating, Y$_{1/3}$TaO$_3$ transforms to a paraelectric incommensurate phase at $\simeq$750 K, whose atomic arrangement mirrors the domain topology observed in hybrid improper ferroelectrics. Superspace analysis of the modulated phase reveals a route to improve room-temperature polarization, achieved through epitaxial strain, as confirmed by our lattice-dynamics calculations. This defect-ordering strategy should be generalizable to other improper ferroelectrics, including magnetoelectric multiferroics, providing a pathway to amplify otherwise limited macroscopic polarization.
title Switchable Polarization in an A-site Deficient Perovskite through Vacancy and Cation Engineering
topic Materials Science
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01241