Soft Phonons and Anti-phase Domains in SrTiO3 : an Electron Diffuse Scattering Study

Abstract It is well known that cubic SrTiO3 possesses a typical perovskite structure whose reciprocal unit cell is shown in Fig. 1 where X, M, and R designate particular points at Brillouin zone boundaries with the Γ point being the zone origin. The instability of the phonon mode designated by the R point leads to the cubic-to-tetragonal phase transition of SrTiO3 at Tc=103 K. By using the same unit-cell as the cubic SrTiO3, reflections (h k 1) / 2 with h, k, and 1 all odd are superlattice reflections characteristic of tetragonal SrTiO3. Previous investigations of diffuse scattering were carried out by neutron and xray diffraction at Temperatures below 240 K. In the present work, observation of the diffuse scattering was extended to a broad Temperature range of 20 ∼ 700 K. Selected-area electron diffraction patterns (EDPs) reveal splitting and streaking of the superlattice reflections as shown in Fig. 2. We can see streaks along the [1 0 0]* direction, e.g., the streak connecting (5 3-5) / 2 and (7 3-5) / 2, the streak connecting (-3-5 7) / 2 and (-1-5 7) / 2. Splitting of the superreflections (7-1-1) / 2, (9-1-1) / 2, and (-7 1 1) / 2, along [0 1-1]* direction is evident. All the splitting and streaking behaviors shown in Fig. 2 and observed in other EDPs may be interpreted as being formed by the intersection of the Ewald sphere with reciprocal rods MRM shown in Fig. 1, which are along the <100>* direction passing through superlattice points.