Fig. 4: Phase evolution within the slow-quenching Lu:Hf0.6Zr0.4O2 (9.25 at.%) crystal.
a iDPC-STEM results that illustrate the transformation from the initial t (brown) phase to the transient t’ (pink) and t” (yellow), and the formation of o-FE (green) and o-AFE (blue) phases. In each polarization layer, the arrow direction and the arrow length denote the polarization direction and polarization magnitude of each horizontal polarization vector, respectively. The black-white intensity color scale is from −55204 to 78162. b Taking Cluster 4 as an example, the ion distances d1, d2, and d3 across different phase regions are displayed. c Phase evolution mechanism from the t to o-FE phases. The orange arrows denote the movements of the Hf or O ions. d1 and d2 represent the vertical Hf-Hf distances, and d3 corresponds to the horizontal distance between the vertical Hf column and its corresponding O column on the right. mh denotes the horizontal mirror symmetry. The horizontal cyan arrows with a capital P represent the polarization direction. d Hf-Hf distance (d1 and d2) of iDPC-STEM image shown in (a), including the t-o phase evolution region.
