Anion Order and Spontaneous Polarization in LaTiO₂N Oxynitride Thin Films

Vonrüti, Nathalie Simone; Aschauer, Ulrich Johannes (2018). Anion Order and Spontaneous Polarization in LaTiO₂N Oxynitride Thin Films. Physical review letters, 120(4), 046001-1-046001-5. American Physical Society 10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.046001

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The perovskite oxynitride LaTiO\textsubscript{2}N is a promising material for photocatalytic water splitting under visible light. One of the obstacles towards higher efficiencies of this and similar materials stems from charge-carrier recombination, which could be suppressed by the built-in electric field in polar materials. In this study, we investigate the spontaneous polarization in epitaxially strained LaTiO₂N thin films via density functional theory calculations. The effect of epitaxial strain on the anion order, resulting out-of-plane polarization, energy barriers for polarization reversal and the corresponding coercive fields are studied. We find that for compressive strains larger than 4\% the thermodynamically stable anion order is polar along the out-of-plane direction and has a coercive field comparable to other switchable ferroelectrics. Our results show that strained LaTiO₂N could indeed suppress carrier recombination and lead to enhanced photocatalytic activities.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences (DCBP)

UniBE Contributor:

Vonrüti, Nathalie Simone, Aschauer, Ulrich Johannes

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology
500 Science > 540 Chemistry
500 Science > 530 Physics

ISSN:

0031-9007

Publisher:

American Physical Society

Language:

English

Submitter:

Ulrich Johannes Aschauer

Date Deposited:

11 Apr 2018 10:18

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:10

Publisher DOI:

10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.046001

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.110425

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/110425

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