Investigating the nature of Polar Nanoregions in Sr1-xPrxTiO3 by means of Pair Distribution Function Analysis

DOI

Sr0.85Pr0.15TiO3 undergoes a ferroelectric (FE) to paraelectric (PE) transition at Tm500 K. In recent experiment at ID22@ESRF a tetragonal (I4/mcm) to cubic (Pm-3m) phase transition was observed at Tc=460 K, below the FE-PE transition. Pair distribution function (PDF) analysis showed that at T=480 K the local structure still has I4/mcm symmetry, suggesting the presence of nanodomains.As a centro-symmetric space group is not compatible with FE behaviour, we suppose that the rearrangement of the oxygen cage around Pr ions gives rise to localized electric dipoles (polar nanoregions, PNR). Unlike X-ray, neutron PDF (N-PDF) can supply accurate information on interatomic distances involving oxygen ions.We aim at investigating the structure of Sr1-xPrxTiO3 samples as a function of T and x by means of N-PDF, to determine the correct local structure and prove the presence of PNRs.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.67774645
Metadata Access https://icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk/oaipmh/request?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=oai:icatisis.esc.rl.ac.uk:inv/67774645
Provenance
Creator Dr Marco Scavini; Dr Matthew Tucker; Mr Stefano Checchia
Publisher ISIS Neutron and Muon Source
Publication Year 2018
Rights CC-BY Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
OpenAccess true
Contact isisdata(at)stfc.ac.uk
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Discipline Chemistry; Natural Sciences
Temporal Coverage Begin 2015-12-04T08:00:00Z
Temporal Coverage End 2015-12-08T08:00:00Z