%0 Journal Article
%K Domain walls
%K Bismuth compounds
%K Domain structure
%K Epitaxial films
%K Strain control
%K Stress concentration
%K Thermodynamic stability
%K Ferroelastic domain stability
%K Piezoelectric force microscopy (PEM)
%A M.P Cruz
%A Y.H Chu
%A J.X Zhang
%A P.L Yang
%A F Zavaliche
%A Q He
%A P Shafer
%A L.Q Chen
%A Ramamoorthy Ramesh
%B Physical Review Letters
%D 2007
%G eng
%I American Physical Society
%R 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.217601
%T Strain control of domain-wall stability in epitaxial BiFeO3 (110) films
%V 99
%X We have studied the stability of domains and domain walls in multiferroic BiFeO3 thin films using a combination of piezoelectric force microscopy and phase-field simulations. We have discovered that a film-substrate misfit strain may result in a drastically different thermodynamic stability of two parallel domain walls with the same orientation. A fundamental understanding of the underlying physics, the stress distribution in a domain structure, leads to a novel approach to control the ferroelastic domain stability in the multiferroic BiFeO3 system. © 2007 The American Physical Society.