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Removing the Critical Thickness of Improper Ferroelectrics via Interfacial Reconstruction
Letter/Communication   Open access   Peer reviewed

Removing the Critical Thickness of Improper Ferroelectrics via Interfacial Reconstruction

Xin Li, Yu Yun, Guodong Ren, Arashdeep Singh Thind, Amit Kumar Shah, Rohan Mishra and Xiaoshan Xu
Nano letters, v 25(33), pp 12509-12515
20 Aug 2025
PMID: 40779421
url
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.05265View
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Abstract

superlattice zero critical thickness interfacial reconstruction improper ferroelectrics heteroepitaxial growth ultrathin film
The atomic structures at epitaxial film–substrate interfaces determine the scalability of thin films and can result in new phenomena. However, it is challenging to control the structure of the interface. In this work, we report the strong tunability of the epitaxial interface of improper ferroelectric hexagonal ferrites deposited on spinel ferrites, achieving the artificial selection of two types of interfaces that are related by a 90° rotation of in-plane epitaxial relations and feature either disordered or hybrid reconstruction. The hybrid-type interface exhibits characteristic structures of both hexagonal ferrites and spinel ferrites, which remove the critical thickness for improper ferroelectricity. This tunable interfacial structure provides critical insight into controlling interfacial clamping to maintain robust improper ferroelectricity at the two-dimensional limit.

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