Motion and teleportation of polar bubbles in low-dimensional ferroelectrics.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38195617.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-44639-4 and PMC identifier 10776862.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Electric bubbles are sub-10nm spherical vortices of electric dipoles that can spontaneously form in ultra-thin ferroelectrics. While the static properties of electric bubbles are well established, little to nothing is known about the dynamics of these particle-like structures. Here, we reveal pathways to realizing both the spontaneous and controlled dynamics of electric bubbles in ultra-thin Pb(Zr<sub>0.4</sub>Ti<sub>0.6</sub>)O<sub>3</sub> films. In low screening conditions, we find that electric bubbles exhibit thermally-driven chaotic motion giving rise to a liquid-like state. In the high screening regime, we show that bubbles remain static but can be continuously displaced by a local electric field. Additionally, we predict and experimentally demonstrate the possibility of bubble teleportation - a process wherein a bubble is transferred to a new location via a single electric field pulse of a PFM tip. Finally, we attribute the discovered phenomena to the hierarchical structure of the energy landscape.