Ferroelectric domain structure of anisotropically strained NaNbO{sub 3} epitaxial thin films
NaNbO{sub 3} thin films have been grown under anisotropic biaxial strain on several oxide substrates by liquid-delivery spin metalorganic chemical vapor deposition. Compressive lattice strain of different magnitude, induced by the deposition of NaNbO{sub 3} films with varying film thickness on NdGaO{sub 3} single crystalline substrates, leads to modifications of film orientation and phase symmetry, which are similar to the phase transitions in Pb-containing oxides near the morphotropic phase boundary. Piezoresponse force microscopy measurements exhibit large out-of-plane polarization components, but no distinctive domain structure, while C-V measurements indicate relaxor properties in these films. When tensile strain is provoked by the epitaxial growth on DyScO{sub 3}, TbScO{sub 3}, and GdScO{sub 3} single crystalline substrates, NaNbO{sub 3} films behave rather like a normal ferroelectric. The application of these rare-earth scandate substrates yields well-ordered ferroelectric stripe domains of the type a{sub 1}/a{sub 2} with coherent domain walls aligned along the [001] substrate direction as long as the films are fully strained. With increasing plastic lattice relaxation, initially, a 2D domain pattern with still exclusively in-plane electric polarization, and finally, domains with in-plane and out-of-plane polar components evolve.