Electric-Field-Stabilized Ferroelastic Domain Walls in Monoclinic Bi4Ti3O12 Crystals

We present peculiar ferroelastic domain walls stabilized by applying an electric field along the c axis in monoclinic Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 crystals, which has not been reported. Piezoelectric force microscope investigations taking into account the two spontaneous polarization ( P s ) components along the a ( P s(a) ) and c ( P s(c) ) axes revealed that these ferroelastic domain walls are established after the rearrangement of non-ferroelastic 180° domains accompanied by P s(c) switching induced by the electric-field application along the c axis. The ferroelastic domain walls raise the possibility of achieving material design using domain engineering for piezoelectric and optical applications of Bi 4 Ti 3 O 12 .