Conceptual

Defect-Charge-Driven Pyramidal Domain Walls in Ferroelectric BiFeO3

Phase-field simulation within the Landau-Ginzburg-Devonshire framework showing that spatially homogeneous defect charges, screening the bound charge at head-to-head and tail-to-tail 180-degree walls, drive the self-assembly of the dense zigzag/pyramidal triangular domain structure observed by TEM in single-crystal BiFeO3. Explains the physical origin of self-similar nanoscale domain periodicity and points toward engineering materials with tunable self-assembled domain structures.