# Electromechanical control of polarization vortex ordering in an interacting ferroelectric-dielectric composite dimer

## TL;DR

This study uses a computational model to explore how a pair of ferroelectric nanospheres embedded in a dielectric medium respond to electric fields, revealing hysteretic and tunable polarization vortex behaviors influenced by particle separation and field orientation.

## Contribution

It introduces a free-energy based model to analyze polarization vortex control in ferroelectric-dielectric composites, highlighting tunable responses via particle arrangement and external field direction.

## Key findings

- System exhibits hysteretic and tunable responses to electric fields.
- Polarization vortex configurations depend on particle separation and field orientation.
- Potential for designing tunable composite metamaterials.

## Abstract

Using a free-energy based computational model, we have investigated the response of a system comprising two interacting ferroelectric nanospheres, embedded in a dielectric medium, to a static external electric field. The system response is hysteretic and tunable by changing the inter-particle distance and the orientation of the applied field, which strongly modulates the field-driven long-range elastic interactions between the particles that propagate through the dielectric matrix. At small separations, the sensitivity of the system behavior with respect to the electric field direction originates from drastically different configurations of the local vortex-like polarization states in ferroelectric particles. This suggests new routes for the design of composite metamaterials whose dielectric properties can be controlled and tuned by selecting the mutual arrangement of their ferroelectric components.