Tuesday, June 18, 2013

1306.3931 (Viswanath Balakrishnan et al.)

Direct in-situ observation of structural transition driven actuation in
VO2 utilizing electron transparent cantilevers
   [PDF]

Viswanath Balakrishnan, Shriram Ramanathan
Direct imaging and quantification of actuation in nanostructures that undergo structural phase transitions could advance our understanding of collective phenomena in the solid state. Here, we demonstrate visualization of structural phase transition induced actuation in a model correlated insulator vanadium dioxide by in-situ Fresnel contrast imaging of electron transparent cantilevers. We quantify abrupt, reversible cantilever motion occurring due to the stress relaxation across the structural transition from monoclinic to tetragonal phase with increasing temperature. Deflections measured in such nanoscale cantilevers can be directly correlated with macroscopic stress measurements by wafer curvature studies as well as temperature dependent electrical conduction allowing one to interrogate lattice dynamics across length scales.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1306.3931

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