Tuning domain wall conductivity in bulk lithium niobate by uniaxial stress

Although ferroelectrics are electrical insulators, their domain walls (DWs) can be charged and can possess an exceptional large conductivity of an order of magnitude larger than in the bulk crystal. To shed light on the correlation between bound charges and conductivity of ferroelectric DWs, the authors in this work investigate the effect of piezoelectric charging via external uniaxial stress on the directionality of DW conductivity in single crystals of $z$-cut 5% MgO doped lithium niobate by combing a piezodriven stress cell with a scanning probe microscope.