Abstract
Electro-mechanical interactions between charged point defects and domain walls play a key
role in the functional properties of bulk and thin-film ferroelectrics. While for perovskites the
macroscopic implications of the ordering degree of defects on domain-wall pinning have been
reported, atomistic details of these mechanisms remain unclear. Here, based on atomic and
nanoscale analyses, we propose a pinning mechanism associated with conductive domain
walls in BiFeO 3 , whose origin lies in the dynamic coupling of the p-type defects gathered in
the domain-wall regions with domain-wall displacements under applied electric field.
Moreover, we confirm that the degree of defect ordering at the walls, which affect the
domain-wall conductivity, can be tuned by the cooling rate used during the annealing,
allowing us to determine how this ordering affects the atomic structure of the walls. The
results are useful in the design of the domain-wall architecture and dynamics for emerging
nanoelectronic and bulk applications.
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