{"id":7875,"date":"2016-05-20T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T10:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vps468643.ovh.net.s216418.gridserver.com\/?p=7875"},"modified":"2016-05-23T09:11:14","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T09:11:14","slug":"emergence-of-long-range-order-in-batio3-from-local-symmetry-breaking-distortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/senngroup.com\/emergence-of-long-range-order-in-batio3-from-local-symmetry-breaking-distortions\/","title":{"rendered":"Emergence of long-range order in BaTiO3 from local symmetry-breaking distortions"},"content":{"rendered":"
M.\u2009S. Senn, D.\u2009A. Keen, T.\u2009C.\u2009A. Lucas, J.\u2009A. Hriljac, and A.\u2009L. Goodwin, Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 (2016), 207602.<\/p>\n
By using a symmetry motivated basis to evaluate local distortions against pair distribution function data (PDF), we show without prior bias, that the off-centre Ti displacements in the archetypal ferroelectric BaTiO3 are zone centred and rhombohedral-like in nature across its known ferroelectric and paraelectric phases. With our newly-gained insight we construct a simple Monte Carlo (MC) model which captures our main experimental findings and demonstrate how the rich crystallographic phase diagram of BaTiO3 emerges from correlations of local symmetry-breaking distortions alone. Our results strongly support the order-disorder picture for these phase transitions, but can also be reconciled with the soft-mode theory of BaTiO3 that is supported by some spectroscopic techniques.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"