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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Light-Induced Currents at Domain Walls in Multiferroic BiFeO3.

Multiferroic BiFeO3 (BFO) films with spontaneously formed periodic stripe domains can generate above-gap open circuit voltages under visible light illumination; nevertheless the underlying mechanism behind this intriguing optoelectronic response has not been understood to date. Here, we make contact-free measurements of light-induced currents in epitaxial BFO films via detecting terahertz radiation emanated by these currents, enabling a direct probe of the intrinsic charge separation mechanisms along with quantitative measurements of the current amplitudes and their directions. In the periodic stripe samples, we find that the net photocurrent is dominated by the charge separation across the domain walls, whereas in the monodomain samples the photovoltaic response arises from a bulk shift current associated with the non-centrosymmetry of the crystal. The peak current amplitude driven by the charge separation at the domain walls is found to be 2 orders of magnitude higher than the bulk shift current response, indicating the prominent role of domain walls acting as nanoscale junctions to efficiently separate photogenerated charges in the stripe domain BFO films. These findings show that domain-wall-engineered BFO thin films offer exciting prospects for ferroelectric-based optoelectronics, as well as bias-free strong terahertz emitters.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Switching the spin cycloid in BiFeO3 with an electric field

Abstract Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3 ) is a multiferroic material that exhibits both ferroelectricity and canted antiferromagnetism at room temperature, making it a unique candidate in the development of electric-field controllable magnetic devices. The magnetic moments in BiFeO 3 are arranged into a spin cycloid, resulting in unique magnetic properties which are tied to the ferroelectric order. Previous understanding of this coupling has relied on average, mesoscale measurements. Using nitrogen vacancy-based diamond magnetometry, we observe the magnetic spin cycloid structure of BiFeO 3 in real space. This structure is magnetoelectrically coupled through symmetry to the ferroelectric polarization and this relationship is maintained through electric field switching. Through a combination of in-plane and out-of-plane electrical switching, coupled with ab initio studies, we have discovered that the epitaxy from the substrate imposes a magnetoelastic anisotropy on the spin cycloid, which establishes preferred cycloid propagation directions. The energy landscape of the cycloid is shaped by both the ferroelectric degree of freedom and strain-induced anisotropy, restricting the spin spiral propagation vector to changes to specific switching events.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Reversible control over the distribution of chemical inhomogeneities in multiferroic BiFeO3

Abstract Despite the appeal of flawless order, semiconductor technology has demonstrated that implanting inhomogeneities into single-crystalline materials is pivotal for modern electronics. However, the influence of the local arrangement of chemical inhomogeneities on the material’s functionalities is underexplored. In this work, we control the distribution of chemical inhomogeneities in La 3+ -substituted ferroelectric BiFeO 3 thin films. By means of a stress- and composition-driven phase transition, we trigger the formation of a lattice of La 3+ -rich and La 3+ -poor layers. This ordering correlates with the emergence of an antipolar phase. An electric field restores the original ferroelectric phase and re-randomizes the distribution of the La 3+ inhomogeneities. Leveraging these insights, we tune the polar/antipolar phase coexistence to set the net polarization of La 0.15 Bi 0.85 FeO 3 to any desired value between its saturation limits. Finally, we control the net polarization response in device-compliant capacitor heterostructures to show that inhomogeneity-distribution control is a valuable tool in the design of functional oxide electronics.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2021

Lattice symmetry breaking transition and critical size limit for ferroic orders in nanophase BiFeO3

Finite size effects on the ferroic orders in BiFeO 3 are studied by atomic pair distribution function analysis and magnetic measurements. While bulk rhombohedral BiFeO 3 exhibits ferroelectricity and antiferromagnetism with a cycloidal magnetic moment arrangement leading to zero magnetization and weak magnetoelectric coupling, BiFeO 3 nanoparticles with a size smaller than the spin cycloid period of 62 nm preserve their polar rhombohedral structure and develop ferromagnetism, thus exhibiting coexisting polarization and nonzero magnetization that enhances the magnetoelectric coupling. When the nanoparticles become smaller than 17 nm, however, their crystal lattice expands and becomes nonpolar cubic. They also become superparamagnetic and thus simultaneously cease exhibiting both ferroelectricity and ferromagnetism. Our findings shed light on the interaction between the lattice structure and ferroic orders in nanophase perovskites and also provide a rare example of a lattice symmetry breaking phase transition that determines their critical size.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2021

Anisotropic epitaxial stabilization of a low-symmetry ferroelectric with enhanced electromechanical response

Here piezoelectrics interconvert mechanical energy and electric charge and are widely used in actuators and sensors. The best performing materials are ferroelectrics at a morphotropic phase boundary, where several phases coexist. Switching between these phases by electric field produces a large electromechanical response. In ferroelectric BiFeO3, strain can create a morphotropic-phase-boundary-like phase mixture and thus generate large electric-field-dependent strains. However, this enhanced response occurs at localized, randomly positioned regions of the film. Here, we use epitaxial strain and orientation engineering in tandem-anisotropic epitaxy-to craft a low-symmetry phase of BiFeO3 that acts as a structural bridge between the rhombohedral-like and tetragonal-like polymorphs. Interferometric displacement sensor measurements reveal that this phase has an enhanced piezoelectric coefficient of x2.4 compared with typical rhombohedral-like BiFeO3. Band-excitation frequency response measurements and first-principles calculations provide evidence that this phase undergoes a transition to the tetragonal-like polymorph under electric field, generating an enhanced piezoelectric response throughout the film and associated field-induced reversible strains. These results offer a route to engineer thin-film piezoelectrics with improved functionalities, with broader perspectives for other functional oxides.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Materials Data on FeBiO3 by Materials Project

BiFeO3 crystallizes in the trigonal R3 space group. The structure is two-dimensional and consists of three BiFeO3 sheets oriented in the (0, 0, 1) direction. Fe3+ is bonded in a trigonal planar geometry to three equivalent O2- atoms. All Fe–O bond lengths are 1.81 Å. Bi3+ is bonded in a distorted trigonal non-coplanar geometry to three equivalent O2- atoms. All Bi–O bond lengths are 2.09 Å. O2- is bonded in a distorted bent 120 degrees geometry to one Fe3+ and one Bi3+ atom.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Boundary conditions manipulation of polar vortex domains in BiFeO 3 membranes via phase-field simulations

Polar vortex domains have recently become an emergent research field due to the abundant physical phenomena and potential applications in high-density memories. Here, we explore the mechanisms of creating polar vortex domains in the BiFeO3 (BFO) membranes subjected to different boundary conditions using phase-field simulations. A major difference is that the vortex in membrane can be stabilized even under short-circuit electrical boundary conditions compared to vortex in other systems, such as thin film or superlattice. We found that (a) the formation of polar vortex domains at the membrane interior under bending is mainly driven by the reduction of elastic energy under short-circuit boundary condition, and the vortex chirality (namely, clockwise and counterclockwise) could be identified by n-shape and u-shape bending; (b) in the unbent open-circuit BFO membrane case, exotic trapezoid-shaped vortex nanodomains form at the terminations of 109 degrees domain walls (DWs) and partially charged 71 degrees DWs, which is driven by the local depolarization field and the interplay among electrostatic, elastic, and gradient and Landau energies. We also examine Kittel's law by establishing the dependence of vortex periods on the membrane thickness. Furthermore, these results give further understanding of the effect of boundary conditions on the formation of polar vortex domains, guiding experimental designs of vortex-based high-density memories.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Magnon confinement in epitaxial antiferromagnetic oxide heterostructures.

Magnons, the quanta of spin waves, have been extensively studied in a range of materials for spintronics, particularly for non-volatile logic-in-memory devices. Controlling magnons in conventional antiferromagnets and harnessing them in practical applications, however, remains a challenge. Here, we demonstrate highly efficient magnon transport in a LaFeO3/ BiFeO3/ LaFeO3 all-antiferromagnetic system, which can be controlled electrically, making it highly desirable for energy-efficient computation. Leveraging spin-orbit-driven spin-charge transduction, we demonstrate that this material architecture permits magnon confinement in ultrathin antiferromagnets, enhancing the output voltage generated by magnon transport by several orders of magnitude, which provides a pathway to enable magnetoelectric memory and logic functionalities. Additionally, the non-volatility of output voltage enables ultralowpower logic-in-memory processing, where magnonic devices can be efficiently reconfigured via electrically controlled magnon spin currents within magnetoelectric channels.

Husain, Sajid↗
DOE OSTI2020

Integration of amorphous ferromagnetic oxides with multiferroic materials for room temperature magnetoelectric spintronics

A room temperature amorphous ferromagnetic oxide semiconductor can substantially reduce the cost and complexity associated with utilizing crystalline materials for spintronic devices. We report a new material (Fe 0.66 Dy 0.24 Tb 0.1 ) 3 O 7-x (FDTO), which shows semiconducting behavior with reasonable electrical conductivity (~500 mOhm-cm), an optical band-gap (2.4 eV), and a large enough magnetic moment (~200 emu/cc), all of which can be tuned by varying the oxygen content during deposition. Magnetoelectric devices were made by integrating ultrathin FDTO with multiferroic BiFeO 3 . A strong enhancement in the magnetic coercive field of FDTO grown on BiFeO 3 validated a large exchange coupling between them. Additionally, FDTO served as an excellent top electrode for ferroelectric switching in BiFeO3 with no sign of degradation after ~10 10 switching cycles. RT magneto-electric coupling was demonstrated by modulating the resistance states of spin-valve structures using electric fields.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Co-orchestration of multiple instruments to uncover structure–property relationships in combinatorial libraries

The rapid growth of automated and autonomous instrumentation brings forth opportunities for the co-orchestration of multimodal tools that are equipped with multiple sequential detection methods or several characterization techniques to explore identical samples. This is exemplified by combinatorial libraries that can be explored in multiple locations via multiple tools simultaneously or downstream characterization in automated synthesis systems. In co-orchestration approaches, information gained in one modality should accelerate the discovery of other modalities. Correspondingly, an orchestrating agent should select the measurement modality based on the anticipated knowledge gain and measurement cost. Herein, we propose and implement a co-orchestration approach for conducting measurements with complex observables, such as spectra or images. The method relies on combining dimensionality reduction by variational autoencoders with representation learning for control over the latent space structure and integration into an iterative workflow via multi-task Gaussian Processes (GPs). This approach further allows for the native incorporation of the system's physics via a probabilistic model as a mean function of the GPs. We illustrate this method for different modes of piezoresponse force microscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy on a combinatorial Sm-BiFeO3 library. However, the proposed framework is general and can be extended to multiple measurement modalities and arbitrary dimensionality of the measured signals.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗