Journal of Advanced Dielectrics, Volume. 15, Issue 2, 2450015(2025)
The change of the domain wall shape under the ion beam irradiation in lithium niobate
Elena Pashnina, Alla Slautina, Andrey Akhmatkhanov*, Maria Chuvakova, and Vladimir Shur
Author Affiliations
School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ural Federal University, Ekaterinburg 620002, Russiashow less
In this paper, we present the study of the shape change on the polar surface and in the bulk of the walls of lamellar domains as a result of local switching by focused ion beam. Periodical lamellar domain structures (PDS) are created alternatively by two methods: (i) electric-field poling using photolithographically defined electrodes and (ii) ion beam poling. The dot irradiation of Z areas near the walls of lamellar domains leads to the formation of faceted or rounded hexagonal domains. For e-field PDS additional formation of nanodomain ensembles was observed. We have revealed two types of domain wall shape changes induced by irradiation: (1) merging of the hexagonal domain with the domain wall for Z areas; (2) formation of rounded distortion of the domain wall for Z? areas. For Z areas irradiation, the domain wall distortion was described by a simple model of independent growth of isolated domain with its subsequent merging with a static domain wall. For Z? surface irradiation, the domain wall shift increases linearly with the distance between the irradiation dot and the wall. It was revealed that the merging between the growing hexagonal pyramid domain and lamellar domain can be obtained in the bulk even for absence of merging at the surface. All obtained results have been explained within a kinetic approach to the domain wall motion by step generation. The switching field consists of inputs produced by: (i) the charges injected during dot irradiation into the photoresist layer and crystal bulk, (ii) the charges injected during the creation of i-beam PDS, (iii) the depolarization fields. The transition of the shapes of isolated domains and wall distortions from faceted to rounded ones with field increase was attributed to the transition from determined step generation to stochastic one.