Phase-field simulation of strain-induced ferroelectric domain evolution in hexagonal manganites

The domain structures evolution induced by strain in hexagonal manganites was simulated through using phase-field simulation. The result demonstrated that tensile strain in x direction (or compressive strain in y direction) and pure shear strain will drive topological ferroelectric vortex into topological stripe domains in y direction and x direction, respectively. During this ferroelectric domain evolution, the annihilation of topological vortex-antivortex was found in a way that vortices and antivortices are moving in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, the topological charge is conservative during this evolution under the periodic boundary condition. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.