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Spatiotemporal Patterns in Ultraslow Domain Wall Creep Dynamics
Ezequiel E Ferrero1, Laura Foini2, Thierry Giamarchi2
1Université Grenoble Alpes, LIPHY, F-38000 Grenoble, France and CNRS, LIPHY, F-38000 Grenoble, France.
Physical Review Letters
|April 22, 2017
Summary
Ferroelectric and ferromagnetic domain walls exhibit ultraslow creep. Novel simulations reveal activated events with earthquake-like aftershock patterns, clustering similarly to critical depinning avalanches.
Area of Science:
- Condensed matter physics
- Materials science
- Complex systems
Background:
- Domain walls in ferromagnetic and ferroelectric materials move via avalanches near depinning fields.
- At lower fields, domain wall motion occurs through ultraslow creep via thermal activation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a numerical technique for simulating ultraslow creep dynamics of domain walls over extended timescales.
- To investigate the nature of activated events in the creep regime and their statistical properties.
Main Methods:
- Development of a novel numerical technique to capture ultraslow creep dynamics.
- Analysis of spatiotemporal patterns and statistical distributions of activated events.
Main Results:
- Identified activated events with collective reorganizations resembling avalanches.
- Observed correlated spatiotemporal patterns in activated events, analogous to earthquake aftershocks.
- Demonstrated that these events form independent clusters exhibiting critical depinning avalanche statistics at larger scales.
Conclusions:
- Ultraslow domain wall creep involves complex, correlated dynamics with avalanche-like characteristics.
- The observed clustering and statistical similarities suggest a universal behavior at the depinning transition.
- Correlated dynamics are potentially observable using experimental techniques like magneto-optical imaging.