BaTiO 3 / SrTiO 3 superlattices are found to have a critical periodicity of 30 SrTiO3 unit cells, below which the room-temperature symmetry is mm2 orthorhombic. The orthorhombic-tetragonal phase-transition temperature is shifted upward from the bulk value (<3 K and normally not observed at finite temperature) of the quantum paraelectric pure strontium titanate to temperatures above ambient (599 K for 30/30-unit-cell superlattices). Antidipole patterns appear in superlattices with unit cells below 10/10. A model is presented that accounts quantitatively for the change in second-harmonic generation intensity with superlattice periodicity from 4 unit cells to 50.
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Jiang et al. (2003) studied this question.