Room-temperature ferroelectric and ferroelastic orders coexisting in a new tetrafluoroborate-based perovskite

The coexistence of multiferroic orders has attracted increasing attention for its potential applications in multiple-state memory, switches, and computing, but it is still challenging to design single-phase crystalline materials hosting multiferroic orders at above room temperature. By utilizing versatile ABX₃-type perovskites as a structural model, we judiciously introduced a polar organic cation with easily changeable conformations into a tetrafluoroborate-based perovskite system, and successfully obtained an unprecedented molecular perovskite, (homopiperazine-1,4-diium)[K(BF₄)₃], hosting both ferroelectricity and ferroelasticity at above room temperature. By using the combined techniques of variable-temperature single-crystal X-ray structural analyses, differential scanning calorimetry, and dielectric, second harmonic generation, and piezoresponse force microscopy measurements, we demonstrated the domain structures for ferroelectric and ferroelastic orders, and furthermore disclosed how the delicate interplay between stepwise changed dynamics of organic cations and cooperative deformation of the inorganic framework induces ferroelectric and ferroelastic phase transitions at 311 K and 455 K, respectively. This instance, together with the underlying mechanism of ferroic transitions, provides important clues for designing advanced multiferroic materials based on organic–inorganic hybrid crystals.

An unprecedented tetrafluoroborate-based perovskite reveals the coexistence of ferroelastic and ferroelectric transitions arising from delicate interplay between stepwise frozen organic cations and cooperative deformation of the framework.