Ferroelectric nanodomains in epitaxial GeTe thin films

Ferroelectric switching in epitaxial GeTe films

Domain wall roughness in epitaxial ferroelectric PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 thin films.

The static configuration of ferroelectric domain walls was investigated using atomic force microscopy on epitaxial PbZr(0.2)Ti(0.8)O(3) thin films. Measurements of domain wall roughness reveal a power-law growth of the correlation function of relative displacements B(L) alpha L(2zeta) with zeta approximately 0.26 at short length scales L, followed by an apparent saturation at large L. In the sa...

Imaging three-dimensional polarization in epitaxial polydomain ferroelectric thin films

Voltage-modulated scanning force microscopy ~Piezoresponse microscopy! is applied to investigate the domain structure in epitaxial PbZr0.2Ti0.8O3 ferroelectric thin films grown on ~001! SrTiO3. By monitoring the vertical and lateral differential signals from the photodetector of the atomic force microscope it is possible to separate out and observe the out-of-plane and in-plane polarization vec...

Giant flexoelectric effect in ferroelectric epitaxial thin films.

We report on nanoscale strain gradients in ferroelectric HoMnO(3) epitaxial thin films, resulting in a giant flexoelectric effect. Using grazing-incidence in-plane x-ray diffraction, we measured strain gradients in the films, which were 6 or 7 orders of magnitude larger than typical values reported for bulk oxides. The combination of transmission electron microscopy, electrical measurements, an...

Ferroelectric domain structures of epitaxial „001... BiFeO3 thin films

Ferroelectric domain structures of epitaxial BiFeO3 thin films on miscut 001 SrTiO3 substrates have been studied by transmission electron microscopy. BiFeO3 on 0.8° miscut substrates are composed of both 109° and 71° domains; in contrast, only 71° stripe domains are observed in BiFeO3 on 4° miscut 001 SrTiO3 substrates. The domain width in BiFeO3 on 4° miscut substrates increases as film thickn...