The application of lattice strain through epitaxial growth of oxide films on lattice mismatched perovskite-like substrates strongly influences the structural properties of ferroelectric domains and their corresponding piezoelectric behavior. The formation of different ferroelectric phases can be understood by a strain-phase diagram, which is calculated within the framework of the Landau–Ginzbur...

Ferroelectric domain switching under low voltage or short pulses is of interest to the development of high-density random access memory (FRAM) devices. Being necessarily very small in size, instability and back switching often occurs when the external voltage is removed, and creates serious problems. In this investigation, a general approach to determine the minimum size of ferroelectric domain...

Thin Films In article number 2210562, Ruijuan Xu, Kevin J. Crust, Varun Harbola, and co-workers report intrinsic size-driven scaling in lead-free antiferroelectric thin films. They demonstrate an intriguing antiferroelectric-to-ferroelectric transition upon reducing the thickness of NaNbO3 membranes. The image shows coexistence ferroelectric phases freestanding

By means of thin film technology a reduction of size, cost, and power consumption of electronic circuits can be achieved. The required specifications are attained by proper design and combinations of innovative materials and manufacturing technologies. This thesis focuses on the development and fabrication of low-loss ceramic thin film devices for radio and microwave frequency applications. The...

We measure the nonlinear susceptibility of Bi(3.25)La(0.75)Ti(3)O(12) (BLT) thin films grown on quartz substrates using the Z-scan technique with picosecond laser pulses at a wavelength of 532 nm. The third-order nonlinear refractive index coefficient gamma and absorption coefficient beta of the BLT thin film are 3.1 x 10(-10) cm(2)/W and 3 x 10(-5) cm/W, respectively, which are much larger tha...

Ferroelectric thin films offer the possibility of engineering the dielectric response for tunable components in frequency-agile rf and microwave devices. However, this approach often leads to an undesired temperature sensitivity. Compositionally graded ferroelectric films have been explored as a means of redressing this sensitivity, but experimental observations vary depending on geometry and o...

Although enhanced conductivity of ferroelectric domain boundaries has been found in BiFeO3 and Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 films as well as hexagonal rare-earth manganite single crystals, the mechanism of the domain wall conductivity is still under debate. Using conductive atomic force microscopy, we observe enhanced conductance at the electrically-neutral domain walls in semiconducting hexagonal ferroelectric...

Organic electronics is emerging for large-area applications such as photovoltaic cells, rollable displays or electronic paper. Its future development and integration will require a simple, low-power organic memory, that can be written, erased and readout electrically. Here we demonstrate a non-volatile memory in which the ferroelectric polarisation state of an organic tunnel barrier encodes the...

PbTiOs ferroelectric thin films have been prepared on Si (001) by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition. The ai-grown films Were characterized by scanning electmn microscopy, x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. It is shown that the films were highly (001) oriented and had essentially the same lanice constants as the bulk single crystal. However, the %-grown films were subject to intern...

Owing to their prominent stability and CMOS compatibility, HfO2-based ferroelectric films have attracted great attention as promising candidates for ferroelectric random-access memory applications. A major reliability issue for HfO2 based ferroelectric devices is fatigue. So far, there have been a few studies on the fatigue mechanism of this material. Here, we report a systematic study of the f...