An overview of the state of art in ferroelectric thin films is presented. First, we review applications: microsystems' applications, applications in high frequency electronics, and memories based on ferroelectric materials. The second section deals with materials, structure (domains, in particular), and size effects. Properties of thin films that are important for applications are then addressed: polarization reversal and properties related to the reliability of ferroelectric memories, piezoelectric nonlinearity of ferroelectric films which is relevant to microsystems' applications, and permittivity and loss in ferroelectric films-important in all applications and essential in high frequency devices. In the context of properties we also discuss nanoscale probing of ferroelectrics. Finally, we comment on two important emerging topics: multiferroic materials and ferroelectric one-dimensional nanostructures. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.

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Ferroelectric thin films: Review of materials, properties, and applications

Domains in ferroelectrics were considered to be well understood by the middle of the last century: They were generally rectilinear, and their walls were Ising-like. Their simplicity stood in stark contrast to the more complex Bloch walls or N\'eel walls in magnets. Only within the past decade and with the introduction of atomic-resolution studies via transmission electron microscopy, electron holography, and atomic force microscopy with polarization sensitivity has their real complexity been revealed. Additional phenomena appear in recent studies, especially of magnetoelectric materials, where functional properties inside domain walls are being directly measured. In this paper these studies are reviewed, focusing attention on ferroelectrics and multiferroics but making comparisons where possible with magnetic domains and domain walls. An important part of this review will concern device applications, with the spotlight on a new paradigm of ferroic devices where the domain walls, rather than the domains, are the active element. Here magnetic wall microelectronics is already in full swing, owing largely to the work of Cowburn and of Parkin and their colleagues. These devices exploit the high domain wall mobilities in magnets and their resulting high velocities, which can be supersonic, as shown by Kreines' and co-workers 30 years ago. By comparison, nanoelectronic devices employing ferroelectric domain walls often have slower domain wall speeds, but may exploit their smaller size as well as their different functional properties. These include domain wall conductivity (metallic or even superconducting in bulk insulating or semiconducting oxides) and the fact that domain walls can be ferromagnetic while the surrounding domains are not.

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Domain wall nanoelectronics

Keywords: hysteresis ; ferroelectric ; piezoelectric Reference LC-CHAPTER-2006-001 Record created on 2006-08-03, modified on 2017-05-10

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Hysteresis in Piezoelectric and Ferroelectric Materials

Macroscopic ferroelectric polarization switching, similar to other first-order phase transitions, is controlled by nucleation centres. Despite 50 years of extensive theoretical and experimental effort, the microstructural origins of the Landauer paradox, that is, the experimentally observed low values of coercive fields in ferroelectrics corresponding to implausibly large nucleation activation energies, are still a mystery. Here, we develop an approach to visualize the nucleation centres controlling polarization switching processes with nanometre resolution, determine their spatial and energy distribution and correlate them to local microstructure. The random-bond and random-field components of the disorder potential are extracted from positive and negative nucleation biases. Observation of enhanced nucleation activity at the 90 composite function domain wall boundaries and intersections combined with phase-field modelling identifies them as a class of nucleation centres that control switching in structural-defect-free materials.

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Direct imaging of the spatial and energy distribution of nucleation centres in ferroelectric materials.

The structure of our material world is characterized by a large hierarchy of length scales that determines material properties and functions. Increasing spatial resolution in optical imaging and spectroscopy has been a long standing desire, to provide access, in particular, to mesoscopic phenomena associated with phase separation, order, and intrinsic and extrinsic structural inhomogeneities. A general concept for the combination of optical spectroscopy with scanning probe microscopy emerged recently, extending the spatial resolution of optical imaging far beyond the diffraction limit. The optical antenna properties of a scanning probe tip and the local near-field coupling between its apex and a sample provide few-nanometer optical spatial resolution. With imaging mechanisms largely independent of wavelength, this concept is compatible with essentially any form of optical spectroscopy, including nonlinear and ultrafast techniques, over a wide frequency range from the terahertz to the extreme ultraviolet. ...

Nano-optical imaging and spectroscopy of order, phases, and domains in complex solids

We have made a direct optical observation of pinning and bowing of a single 180\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{} ferroelectric domain wall under a uniform applied electric field using a collection mode near-field scanning optical microscope. The domain wall is observed to curve between the pinning defects, with a radius of curvature determined by the material parameters and the applied electric field. The change in birefringence with applied field is used to infer the orientation of the internal field at the domain wall.

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Direct Observation of Pinning and Bowing of a Single Ferroelectric Domain Wall

Experimental study of internal fields and movement of single ferroelectric domain walls

We have made a direct and nanometer scale observation of single 180° domain walls in 500 μm thick ferroelectric LiTaO3 by using a collection mode Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscope. We unambiguously identify single domain walls by simultaneously recording nanometer scale topographic and optical images. The polarization rotation of a linear polarized laser beam due to the birefringence at the domain wall is optically imaged with 80–100nm spatial resolution. Next we have made a direct nanometer scale study of the mobility of a single 180° domain wall under a uniform applied electric field using the same technique. The mobility of the domain walls is strongly influenced by sub-surface pinning defects.

T. J. Yang

Papers

Direct Observation of Pinning and Bowing of a Single Ferroelectric Domain Wall

Experimental study of internal fields and movement of single ferroelectric domain walls

Observation and mobility study of single 180° domain wall using a near-field scanning optical microscope