Figure 4: Charge-order domain walls in the presence of structural twins.
From: Charge-order domain walls with enhanced conductivity in a layered manganite
(a) Surface topography of the twinned region. Twin boundaries are marked by cyan dashed lines. The majority of the region is atomically flat. (b–d) High contrast MIM-Re images showing charge-order domain walls. The DWs in the narrow twinned region are indicated by white arrowheads. The presence of structural twin imposes a strong preference of domain wall orientation and stabilizes the domains at up to 373 K. (e) Three-pixel averaged line-cuts of the MIM-Re images along the dotted black line in a, at various temperatures. Most DWs remain unchanged from 306 (blue) to 373 K (green) with a few exceptions, until disappearing at 403 K (red). Traces at 373 and 403 K are offset for visibility. (f) Illustration of three-hierarchy twin/phase/CO domain boundaries based on b. The absolute polarization direction can differ from that illustrated by a π rotation. Microscopic domains below the spatial resolution may also occur. Scale bars, 2 μm.
