Establishing a pure antiferroelectric PbZrO3 phase through tensile epitaxial strain
The nature of lead zirconate, the historical antiferroelectric material, has recently been challenged. In PbZrO<sub>3</sub> epitaxial films, thickness reduction engenders competition among antiferroelectric, ferrielectric and ferroelectric phases. All studies so far on PbZrO<sub>3</sub> films have utilized commercially-available oxide single crystals with large compressive lattice mismatch, causing the films to undergo strain relaxation. First-principles calculations have predicted that tensile strain can stabilize antiferroelectricity down to the nanometre scale. Here we use tensile strain imposed by artificial substrates of LaLuO<sub>3</sub> to stabilize a pure antiferroelectric phase in PbZrO<sub>3</sub>. Sharp double hysteresis loops of polarization vs electric field show zero remanent polarization, and polar displacement maps reveal the characteristic up-up-down-down antipolar pattern down to 9 nanometre film thicknesses. Moreover, the electron beam can move this antipolar pattern through the nucleation and annihilation of translational boundaries. These results highlight the critical role of coherent epitaxial strain in the phase stability of PbZrO<sub>3</sub>.
Authors
- Hugo Aramberri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2216-8931)
- Florian Godel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1741-2741)
- Thomas Maroutian (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5535-391X)
- S. Fusil (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7031-7260)
- Vincent Garcia (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7230-8130)
- Alexandre Gloter (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4813-3799)
- Kaushal R. Parmar
- Pauline Dufour (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-6341-3461)
- Brahim Dkhil (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9862-625X)
- Daniel Sando (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8626-6912)
- J. Hlinka (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9293-4462)
- Xiaoyan Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7828-7273)
- Jorge Íñiguez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6435-3604)
- Cécile Carrétéro
- Emma Texier
Institutions
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- University of Canterbury (NZ)
- University of Luxembourg (LU)
- Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ)
- Université Paris-Saclay (FR)
- Laboratoire de physique des Solides (FR)
- Centre de Nanosciences et de Nanotechnologies (FR)
- CentraleSupélec (FR)
- Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LU)
- Laboratoire Albert Fert (FR)
- FZU ‒ Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (CZ)
- Thales (France) (FR)
- MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology (NZ)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-07-16
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61867-y
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.55
Funders
- European Commission
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- Fonds National de la Recherche Luxembourg
- Horizon 2020 Framework Programme