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Conformational Domain Wall Switch

  • Pankaj Sharma
  • , Daniel Sando
  • , Qi Zhang
  • , Xiaoxing Cheng
  • , Sergey Prosandeev
  • , Ralph Bulanadi
  • , Sergei Prokhorenko
  • , Laurent Bellaiche
  • , Long Qing Chen
  • , Valanoor Nagarajan
  • , Jan Seidel

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

67 Scopus citations

Abstract

Domain walls in ferroelectric materials have tantalizing potential in disruptive memory and reconfigurable nanoelectronics technologies. Here, a ferroelectric domain wall switch with three distinct addressable resistance states is demonstrated. The device operation hinges on fully controllable and reversible conformational changes of the domain wall. As validated by atomistic simulations consistent with the experiments, using electric field, the shape—and hence the charge state—of the domain wall and ultimately its conduction are altered. Sequential nanoscale transitions of the walls are visualized directly using stroboscopic-piezoresponse force microscopy and Kelvin probe microscopy. Anisotropic head-to-head domain wall injection, stabilized by the majority carrier type of the ferroelectric, BiFeO 3 , is identified as the key factor that enables conformational control.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1807523
JournalAdvanced Functional Materials
Volume29
Issue number18
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2 2019

Funding

The authors acknowledge funding support by the Australian Research Council through Discovery Grants and support for nanoscale device patterning by the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF, The University of New South Wales). This research was also partially supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (project number CE170100039) and funded by the Australian Government. The work at Penn State was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under Award DE-FG02-07ER46417. S. Prosandeev thanks Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant N00014-17-1-2818, S. Prokhorenko, Q. Zhang and V. Nagarajan acknowledge Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant HR001727183-D18AP00010 (Topological Excitations in Electronics program), and L. Bellaiche thanks the Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, for support under Contract No. ER-46612. P.S., V.N., and J.S. conceived the idea. P.S. designed and implemented the experimental measurements. D.S. and R.B. fabricated the BFO thin films and performed structural characterization. Q.Z. designed/patterned devices using e-beam nanolithography. X.C. and L.-Q.C. performed phase-field calculations. S.P., S.P., and L.B. conducted and/or analyzed effective Hamiltonian simulations. P.S. analyzed the results and wrote the paper with J.S, V.N., and D.S. All authors reviewed and contributed to the final paper preparation. All data that support findings of the investigation are available upon request from the corresponding authors.

Keywords

  • domain walls
  • ferroelectrics
  • multiferroics
  • nanoelectronics
  • scanning probe microscopy

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