Shapes of isolated domains and field induced evolution of regular and random 2D domain structures in LiNbO₃ and LiTaO₃

Shur, V., Chernykh, A.P., Nikolaeva, E.V., Shishkin, E.I., Shur, A.G., Terabe, K., Kurimura, S., Kitamura, K. and Gallo, K. (2005) Shapes of isolated domains and field induced evolution of regular and random 2D domain structures in LiNbO₃ and LiTaO₃. 8th International Symposium on Ferroic Domains and Micro-to Nanoscopic Structures, Tsukuba, Japan. 23 - 26 Aug 2005.

Abstract

The whole variety of the shapes of isolated domains revealed in congruent and stoichiometric LiTaO₃ and LiNbO₃ by chemical etching and visualized by optical and scanning probe microscopy, was obtained by computer simulation. The shape evolution during growth was simulated by means of slightly modified Boolean automaton on a triangular cell. The kinetic nature of the shape of individual domains is clearly demonstrated.

The kinetics of domain structure evolution with the dominance of the growth of the steps formed at the domain walls as a result of domain merging was investigated experimentally in slightly distorted artificial regular two-dimensional (2D) domain structure and random natural one. The artificial model structure has been realized in congruent LiNbO₃ with 2D electrode pattern produced by photolithography. Moreover the polarization reversal in congruent LiTaO₃ was investigated as an example of natural domain growth limited by merging in random cell with possibility to control the initial density of individual domains by electric field. The domain images have been in situ visualized using polarizing optical microscope. The field induced evolution of the domain structure defined by domain merging was investigated in detail by computer simulation as a genuine percolation problem. The crucial dependence of the switching parameters on the nuclei concentration has been revealed.

The research was made possible in part by INTAS: Grant 03-51-6562; by Grant 04-02-16770, and by Ministry of Education RF ...06.01.028 of Program "Basic Research in Russian Universities"; and by Award No.EK-005-X1.

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