Twin Domains in Van der Waals Quaternary Oxides
Abstract
Optical anisotropy is the basis for many intriguing phenomena in van der Waals materials, including hyperbolic polaritons and extreme birefringence. Stacking and twisting van der Waals materials along the out-of-plane direction emerged as a powerful route to tailor this anisotropy, but designing lateral interfaces remains a challenge. Here, twin domains are reported in the van der Waals quaternary oxides MgTeMoO6, MnTeMoO6, ZnTeMoO6, and CoTeMoO6 - materials that possess strong in-plane optical anisotropy and second-order nonlinearity. The domains naturally form in their orthorhombic crystal structure and extend over hundreds of micrometers. It is proposed that this stability is achieved by the domain wall acting as a diagonal mirror plane in the crystal structure, parallel to the (1-10) or (110) crystal planes, resulting in nearly opposite birefringence between domains. This hypothesis is experimentally confirmed by determining the angle between the crystal axes of neighboring domains using polarization-resolved optical microscopy, infrared-visible sum-frequency generation microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The latter further allowed an estimate of the domain wall thickness. Overall, the observation of twin domains with orthogonal optical anisotropy opens new routes to use van der Waals quaternary oxides for birefringent waveguiding, polariton steering, and frequency conversion applications.
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BibTeX
@misc{mader2026twin,
title = {{Twin Domains in Van der Waals Quaternary Oxides}},
author = {Dorothée S. Mader and Niels Brumby and Xiaosheng Yang and Nele Stetzuhn and Eduardo Ortega and Christian Carbogno and Katayoun Gharagozloo-Hubmann and Sebastian F. Maehrlein and Martin Wolf and Kirill Bolotin and Peining Li and Niclas S. Mueller and Alexander Paarmann},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.15734},
eprint = {2609.15734},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15734},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Twin Domains in Van der Waals Quaternary Oxides
AU - Dorothée S. Mader
AU - Niels Brumby
AU - Xiaosheng Yang
AU - Nele Stetzuhn
AU - Eduardo Ortega
AU - Christian Carbogno
AU - Katayoun Gharagozloo-Hubmann
AU - Sebastian F. Maehrlein
AU - Martin Wolf
AU - Kirill Bolotin
AU - Peining Li
AU - Niclas S. Mueller
AU - Alexander Paarmann
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.15734
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.15734
AB - Optical anisotropy is the basis for many intriguing phenomena in van der Waals materials, including hyperbolic polaritons and extreme birefringence. Stacking and twisting van der Waals materials along the out-of-plane direction emerged as a powerful route to tailor this anisotropy, but designing lateral interfaces remains a challenge. Here, twin domains are reported in the van der Waals quaternary oxides MgTeMoO_6, MnTeMoO_6, ZnTeMoO_6, and CoTeMoO_6 - materials that possess strong in-plane optical anisotropy and second-order nonlinearity. The domains naturally form in their orthorhombic crystal structure and extend over hundreds of micrometers. It is proposed that this stability is achieved by the domain wall acting as a diagonal mirror plane in the crystal structure, parallel to the (1-10) or (110) crystal planes, resulting in nearly opposite birefringence between domains. This hypothesis is experimentally confirmed by determining the angle between the crystal axes of neighboring domains using polarization-resolved optical microscopy, infrared-visible sum-frequency generation microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The latter further allowed an estimate of the domain wall thickness. Overall, the observation of twin domains with orthogonal optical anisotropy opens new routes to use van der Waals quaternary oxides for birefringent waveguiding, polariton steering, and frequency conversion applications.
ER -