Formation of Broad Domain Boundary in Congruent Lithium Niobate Modified by Proton Exchange

Vladimir Ya. Shur (1) , Maxim Neradovskiy , Mikhail A. Dolbilov (1) , A.I. Lobov , Pavel S. Zelenovskiy (1) , A.D. Ushakov , E.S. Ushakova , Emmanuel Quillier (2) , Pascal Baldi (2) , Marc de Micheli (2)

1 Ferroelectric Laboratory
2 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée

The strong dependence of the domain kinetics on the applied field and the thickness of the surface layers produced by proton exchange has been revealed in congruent lithium niobate. The correlated nucleation leads to formation of self-assembled structures consisting of isolated domains. Formation of the nanodomains in front of the domain wall results in its continuous motion. The pronounced self-organization effect leads to formation of broad domain boundaries and ensembles of isolated nanodomains consisting of nanodomain chains and nets. The obtained effects were attributed to highly non-equilibrium switching conditions caused by retardation of the bulk screening of depolarization field.

Mots clés: Nanodomain structure; self-assembling; self-organized structures; domain kinetics

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Vladimir Ya. Shur, Maxim Neradovskiy, Mikhail A. Dolbilov, A.I. Lobov, Pavel S. Zelenovskiy, et al.. Formation of Broad Domain Boundary in Congruent Lithium Niobate Modified by Proton Exchange. Ferroelectrics, 2015, 476 (1), pp.146-155. ⟨10.1080/00150193.2015.998946⟩. ⟨hal-01311704⟩