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Published in

National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 5(115), p. 915-920, 2018

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1711652115

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Emergent chirality in the electric polarization texture of titanate superlattices

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Significance Many natural structures exhibit chirality that is essential to their functional interactions, yet the chiral electronic structures found in condensed matter systems have been primarily limited to magnetic materials. Notably, the electric dipole equivalent of magnetic skyrmions has remained conspicuously elusive. However, recent theoretical predictions and experimental observations of the continuous rotation of electric polarization in titanate superlattices suggests that such complex oxide nanocomposites are ideal candidates for realizing chiral electric dipole configurations. Here we present the results from superlattices of PbTiO 3 and SrTiO 3 using a combination of resonant soft X-ray diffraction and second-principles simulations. We observe chiral arrays of polar line defects, spontaneously formed by the complex interactions in these artificial superlattices constructed from two nonchiral lattices.