Probing dislocation-domain wall interactions in BaTiO3 single crystals by SXDM

The controlled plastic deformation of ferroelectric crystals has been shown to be a promising route to enhance functional properties such as piezoelectricity. Injected dislocations interact with the strain fields associated with domain walls, acting as nucleation and pinning centres. Despite a correlation between the improvement of functional properties and the overall dislocation population has been clearly established, the exact mechanism behind the dislocation-domain wall interaction is unknown. We propose investigate this matter by using nanodiffraction on ID01, imaging strain in regions where dislocations and domains meet.