Domain Texture of the Orthorhombic Phase of La2−xBaxCuO4

Abstract

Bragg coherent diffraction imaging (BCDI) experiments have been carried out at the Advanced Photon Source using a new cryostat system developed to achieve high mechanical stability and low vibrations. We measured the (012) LTO Bragg peak which is unique to the low-temperature orthorhombic (LTO) phase of micron-sized crystals of the high-temperature superconductor La 2−x Ba x CuO 4 (LBCO) to study the formation of structural domains. Each time the sample was cooled into the orthorhombic phase, the diffraction pattern of domains was different. This confirms the interpretation of pinning of the lower-temperature charge density Wave domains observed in coherent resonant X-ray speckle correlation analysis experiments.

Complex imaging of phase domains by deep neural networks

“…Besides, there is strong scientific interest in studying structured nanoparticles containing phase-shifted structural domains which are relevant to their function as superconductors, catalysts or piezoelectric actuators, for example. For these 'strong phase' particles, which have multicentered diffraction patterns, the iterative method struggles to obtain a correct solution with high confidence (Ihli et al, 2016;Robinson et al, 2020). Consequently, the difficulty of coherent diffraction imaging to deliver trustworthy unique solutions to the phase problem currently limits the range of applications of the iterative phase-retrieval method in single-particle-imaging experiments.…”

Nanoscale Mapping of Heterogeneous Strain and Defects in Individual Magnetic Nanocrystals

“…BCDI techniques are emerging at third and fourth-generation light sources [23] as a state of the art non-destructive tool for 3D imaging of strain inhomogeneity [24][25][26][27][28][29] and dynamics [30,31] within and in the vicinity of a nanocrystal. Recent advances in instrumentation [32,33] and phasing algorithms [34][35][36][37] used in BCDI have seen a wide range of application in imaging ferroelectric polarization [38], ferroelastic domains [39], magnetostrictive strain [40], defects [41,42] and other functional material properties [43][44][45][46][47][48] in individual nanostructures. For a review of Bragg coherent diffractive imaging of strain and a general overview of coherent diffractive imaging please see Refs.…”

Unusual Breathing Behavior of Optically Excited Barium Titanate Nanocrystals

“…BCDI is a 3-D imaging method that is particularly valuable for probing the responses of individual nano-sized crystal grains embedded in an in situ environment, such as a polycrystalline material, a battery electrode or a working catalyst particle. More details about Bragg coherent diffraction imaging can be found in other specialized reviews [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. In this work, BCDI is combined with laser excitation of the samples in a pump-probe approach to obtain ultrafast time-resolved images of internal strain fields [21].…”