Antiferromagnetic domain walls in lightly doped layered cuprates

Recent ESR data shows rotation of the antiferromagnetic (AF) easy axis in lightly doped layered cuprates upon lowering the temperature. We account for the ESR data and show that it has significant implications on spin and charge ordering according to the following scenario: In the high temperature phase AF domain walls coincide with (110) twin boundaries of an orthorhombic phase. A magnetic field leads to annihilation of neighboring domain walls resulting in antiphase boundaries. The latter are spin carriers, form ferromagnetic lines and may become charged in the doped system. However, hole ordering at low temperatures favors the (100) orientation, inducing a pi/4 rotation in the AF easy axis. The latter phase has twin boundaries and AF domain walls in (100) planes.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (1 eps). v2: no change in content, Tex shadow problem cleare

Simulations of cubic-tetragonal ferroelastics

We study domain patterns in cubic-tetragonal ferroelastics by solving numerically equations of motion derived from a Landau model of the phase transition, including dissipative stresses. Our system sizes, of up to 256^3 points, are large enough to reveal many structures observed experimentally. Most patterns found at late stages in the relaxation are multiply banded; all three tetragonal variants appear, but inequivalently. Two of the variants form broad primary bands; the third intrudes into the others to form narrow secondary bands with the hosts. On colliding with walls between the primary variants, the third either terminates or forms a chevron. The multipy banded patterns, with the two domain sizes, the chevrons and the terminations, are seen in the microscopy of zirconia and other cubic-tetragonal ferroelastics. We examine also transient structures obtained much earlier in the relaxation; these show the above features and others also observed in experiment.Comment: 7 pages, 6 colour figures not embedded in text. Major revisions in conten

Ab initio study of ferroelectric domain walls in PbTiO3

We have investigated the atomistic structure of the 180-degree and 90-degree domain boundaries in the ferroelectric perovskite compound PbTiO3 using a first-principles ultrasoft-pseudopotential approach. For each case we have computed the position, thickness and creation energy of the domain walls, and an estimate of the barrier height for their motion has been obtained. We find both kinds of domain walls to be very narrow with a similar width of the order of one to two lattice constants. The energy of the 90-dergree domain wall is calculated to be 35 mJ/m^2, about a factor of four lower than the energy of its 180-degree counterpart, and only a miniscule barrier for its motion is found. As a surprising feature we detected a small offset of 0.15-0.2 eV in the electrostatic potential across the 90-degree domain wall.Comment: 12 pages, with 9 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX and epsf macros. Also available at http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~dhv/preprints/bm_dw/index.htm

Mobility of Domain Walls in Proper Ferroelastic Martensites

Based on the Landau-Ginzberg free energy functional for an Oh-D4h proper ferroelastic martensitic transformation the mobility of a (110) twin boundary in a large bicrystal has been calculated by including dissipation in the approximation of the phonon viscosity model and by solving the inverse boundary value problem for the limiting case of strong shear modulus softening. Application to actual materials requires determination of the phonon viscosity tensor from experimental ultrasonic attenuation or low frequency internal friction data after subtraction of "extrinsic" losses, especially those from pretransformation structural strain modulations ("tweed'') and dislocations. Numerical application to V3Si, the only proper ferroelastic martensite for which such experimental data pertaining to the soft [110]/[1-10] shear mode are available, is discussed

Landau-Ginzburg Model of Interphase Boundaries in CsCl-Type Ferroelastics due to M-5 Mode Instability : LaAg1-xInx

We have constructed a Landau-Ginzburg model of ferroelastic domain walls in the tetragonal phase of CsCl-type intermetallic compounds. This improper ferroelastic phase transition is driven by the condensation of a degenerate zone-edge phonon mode of M-5 symmetry and can be described by a six-component order parameter. Analytic and numerical kink-type soliton solutions for the order parameter profile and the strain distribution are obtained for three different interphase boundaries : a twin boundary and two antiphase boundaries. The stability, merging and splitting of various domain types are also studied. Specifically, a symmetry-allowed product phase of 14/mmm (D174h) symmetry has been experimentally observed in pseudobinary rare earth alloys of composition RAg1-x Inx (R=La, Ce, Pr) and in related systems (YCu, LaCd)