2025/10/09 by Fernando Gómez‐Ortiz, Gómez-Ortiz, Fernando, Louis Bastogne +3
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Condensed Matter Physics #Electronic and Structural Properties of Oxides #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Topological Materials and Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2510.08186
openalex publication_date 2025/10/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Magnetic spin topological textures recently found their electrical counterparts in polar topologies emerging from the condensation of inhomogeneous polar atomic distortions. Here, we further extend the concept to other non-polar atomic degrees of freedom. Taking SrTiO3 as a prototypical example, we investigate from second-principles atomistic simulations, the equilibrium domain structures and topological textures associated with the natural antiferrodistortive rotations of its oxygen octahedra. % Besides the common 90^∘ antiferrodistortive domain walls (twin boundaries), we identify new metastable 180^∘ domain walls oriented along the \lbrace100\rbracepc direction, when compressive epitaxial strain is applied. These domains exhibit complex antiferrodistortive Bloch- and Néel-like configurations with the later being the most favorable. We also stabilize antiferrodistortive vortex and antivortex structures which are accompanied by co-localized polarization vortices and a complex pattern of the local strain field, giving rise to a trimodal topological structures. Our results extends the concept of topological ordering to non-polar structural degrees of freedom and highlights the role of lattice-mediated couplings in stabilizing complex textures in perovskite oxides.