Ferroelastic domain switching dynamics under electrical and mechanical excitations

Peng Gao, Jason Britson, Christopher T. Nelson, Jacob R. Jokisaari, Chen Duan, Morgan Trassin, Seung Hyub Baek, Hua Guo, Linze Li, Yiran Wang, Ying Hao Chu, Andrew M. Minor, Chang Beom Eom, Ramamoorthy Ramesh, Long Qing Chen, Xiaoqing Pan

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Abstract

In thin film ferroelectric devices, switching of ferroelastic domains can significantly enhance electromechanical response. Previous studies have shown disagreement regarding the mobility or immobility of ferroelastic domain walls, indicating that switching behaviour strongly depends on specific microstructures in ferroelectric systems. Here we study the switching dynamics of individual ferroelastic domains in thin Pb(Zr0.2,Ti0.8)O3 films under electrical and mechanical excitations by using in situ transmission electron microscopy and phase-field modelling. We find that ferroelastic domains can be effectively and permanently stabilized by dislocations at the substrate interface while similar domains at free surfaces without pinning dislocations can be removed by either electric or stress fields. For both electrical and mechanical switching, ferroelastic switching is found to occur most readily at the highly active needle points in ferroelastic domains. Our results provide new insights into the understanding of polarization switching dynamics as well as the engineering of ferroelectric devices.

Original languageEnglish
Article number3801
JournalNature Communications
Volume5
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2 2014
Externally publishedYes

Funding

The work at the University of Michigan was supported by the Department of Energy (DOE) under the Grant DE-FG02-07ER46416 and partially by the National Science Foundation under Grants DMR-0820404 (J.R.J.) and DMR/MRI-0723032 (TEM instrument). The work at University of Wisconsin-Madison was supported by the Army Research Office under Grant number W911NF-10-1-0362. The work at Penn State University was supported by the DOE under the Grant DE-FG02-07ER46417 and partially by the NSF through Grants DMR-0820404 and DMR-1210588 (C.D.). We also acknowledge the National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for their support under the DOE Grant DE-AC02-05CH11231 for user facilities.

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