  Cylindrical BaTiO3 nanorods embedded in (100)-oriented SrTiO3 epitaxial film
in a brush-like configuration are investigated in the framework of the
Ginzburg-Landau-Devonshire model. It is shown that strain compatibility at
BaTiO3/SrTiO3 interfaces keeps BaTiO3 nanorods in the rhombohedral phase even
at room temperature. Depolarization field at the BaTiO3/SrTiO3 interfaces is
reduced by an emission of the 109-degree or 71-degree domain boundaries. In
case of nanorods of about 10-80 nm diameter, the ferroelectric domains are
found to form a quadruplet with a robust flux-closure arrangement of the
in-plane components of the spontaneous polarization. The out-of-plane
components of the polarization are either balanced or oriented up or down along
the nanorod axis. Switching of the out-of-plane polarization with coercive
field of about $5.10^6$ V/m occurs as a collapse of a 71-degree cylindrical
domain boundary formed at the curved circumference surface of the nanorod. The
remnant domain quadruplet configuration is chiral, with the $C_4$ macroscopic
symmetry. More complex stable domain configurations with coexisting clockwise
and anticlockwise quadruplets contain interesting arrangement of strongly
curved 71-degree boundaries.
