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    Ferroelectric Self-Poling in GeTe Films and Crystals
    (Basel : MDPI, 2019) Kriegner, Dominik; Springholz, Gunther; Richter, Carsten; Pilet, Nicolas; Müller, Elisabeth; Capron, Marie; Berger, Helmut; Holý, Václav; Dil, J. Hugo; Krempaský, Juraj
    Ferroelectric materials are used in actuators or sensors because of their non-volatile macroscopic electric polarization. GeTe is the simplest known diatomic ferroelectric endowed with exceedingly complex physics related to its crystalline, amorphous, thermoelectric, and—fairly recently discovered—topological properties, making the material potentially interesting for spintronics applications. Typically, ferroelectric materials possess random oriented domains that need poling to achieve macroscopic polarization. By using X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy complemented with anomalous diffraction and piezo-response force microscopy, we investigated the bulk ferroelectric structure of GeTe crystals and thin films. Both feature multi-domain structures in the form of oblique domains for films and domain colonies inside crystals. Despite these multi-domain structures which are expected to randomize the polarization direction, our experimental results show that at room temperature there is a preferential ferroelectric order remarkably consistent with theoretical predictions from ideal GeTe crystals. This robust self-poled state has high piezoelectricity and additional poling reveals persistent memory effects. © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
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    X-ray diffraction reveals the amount of strain and homogeneity of extremely bent single nanowires
    (Copenhagen : Munksgaard, 2020) Davtyan, Arman; Kriegner, Dominik; Holý, Václav; AlHassan, Ali; Lewis, Ryan B.; McDermott, Spencer; Geelhaar, Lutz; Bahrami, Danial; Anjum, Taseer; Ren, Zhe; Richter, Carsten; Novikov, Dmitri; Müller, Julian; Butz, Benjamin; Pietsch, Ullrich
    Core-shell nanowires (NWs) with asymmetric shells allow for strain engineering of NW properties because of the bending resulting from the lattice mismatch between core and shell material. The bending of NWs can be readily observed by electron microscopy. Using X-ray diffraction analysis with a micro- and nano-focused beam, the bending radii found by the microscopic investigations are confirmed and the strain in the NW core is analyzed. For that purpose, a kinematical diffraction theory for highly bent crystals is developed. The homogeneity of the bending and strain is studied along the growth axis of the NWs, and it is found that the lower parts, i.e. close to the substrate/wire interface, are bent less than the parts further up. Extreme bending radii down to ∼3 μm resulting in strain variation of ∼2.5% in the NW core are found. © 2020.
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    Threefold rotational symmetry in hexagonally shaped core–shell (In,Ga)As/GaAs nanowires revealed by coherent X-ray diffraction imaging
    ([Erscheinungsort nicht ermittelbar] : Wiley-Blackwell, 2017) Davtyan, Arman; Krause, Thilo; Kriegner, Dominik; Al-Hassan, Ali; Bahrami, Danial; Mostafavi Kashani, Seyed Mohammad; Lewis, Ryan B.; Küpers, Hanno; Tahraoui, Abbes; Geelhaar, Lutz; Hanke, Michael; Leake, Steven John; Loffeld, Otmar; Pietsch, Ullrich
    Coherent X-ray diffraction imaging at symmetric hhh Bragg reflections was used to resolve the structure of GaAs/In0.15Ga0.85As/GaAs core–shell–shell nanowires grown on a silicon (111) substrate. Diffraction amplitudes in the vicinity of GaAs 111 and GaAs 333 reflections were used to reconstruct the lost phase information. It is demonstrated that the structure of the core–shell–shell nanowire can be identified by means of phase contrast. Interestingly, it is found that both scattered intensity in the (111) plane and the reconstructed scattering phase show an additional threefold symmetry superimposed with the shape function of the investigated hexagonal nanowires. In order to find the origin of this threefold symmetry, elasticity calculations were performed using the finite element method and subsequent kinematic diffraction simulations. These suggest that a non-hexagonal (In,Ga)As shell covering the hexagonal GaAs core might be responsible for the observation.