Elasticity-driven nanoscale texturing in complex electronic materials

Bishop, A. R. ; Lookman, T. ; Saxena, A. ; Shenoy, S. R. (2003) Elasticity-driven nanoscale texturing in complex electronic materials EPL: Europhysics Letters, 63 (2). pp. 289-295. ISSN 0295-5075

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Official URL: http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075/63/2/289?fromS...

Related URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2003-00522-9

Abstract

Fine-scale probes of many complex electronic materials have revealed a non-uniform nanoworld of sign-varying textures in strain, charge and magnetization, forming meandering ribbons, stripe segments or droplets. We introduce and simulate a Ginzburg-Landau model for a structural transition, with strains coupling to charge and magnetization. Charge doping acts as a local stress that deforms surrounding unit cells without generating defects. This seemingly innocuous constraint of elastic "compatibility" in fact induces crucial anisotropic long-range forces of unit cell discrete symmetry, that interweave opposite-sign competing strains to produce polaronic elasto-magnetic textures in the composite variables. Simulations with random local doping below the solid-solid transformation temperature reveal rich multiscale texturing from induced elastic fields: nanoscale phase separation, mesoscale intrinsic inhomogeneities, textural cross-coupling to external stress and magnetic field, and temperature-dependent percolation. We describe how this composite textured polaron concept can be valuable for doped manganites, cuprates and other complex electronic materials.

Item Type:Article
Source:Copyright of this article belongs to EDP Sciences.
ID Code:46064
Deposited On:30 Jun 2011 10:03
Last Modified:18 May 2016 02:06

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