Topological states in ferroelectric nanorods tuned by the surface tension

Abstract Surface tension phenomena acquire significance at the nanoscale due to the pivotal influence of surfaces on properties of confined nanosystems. Yet, surface tension is often omitted when addressing the properties of nanostructured solid materials. Here, we reveal the impact of surface tension on polarization states in ferroelectric nanorods, demonstrating the surface-tension-tailored occurrence of distinct vortex and uniform phases with different spatial topologies. We study how the emergence of these states is tuned by temperature and geometry of the system and provide the radius-temperature phase diagram in exemplary lead titanate ferroelectric nanorods. The discovered surface tension effects allow for the deliberate design and tuning of topological phases in ferroelectric nanorods for their further implementation into nanoelectronic devices and multilevel logic memory units in neuromorphic computing circuits.