Nanoscale Electrochemical Phenomena of Polarization Switching in Ferroelectrics

Anton V. Ievlev; Chance C. Brown; Joshua C. Agar; Gabriel A. Velarde; Lane W. Martin; Alex Belianinov; Petro Maksymovych; Sergei V. Kalinin; Olga S. Ovchinnikova

doi:10.1021/acsami.8b13034

Nanoscale Electrochemical Phenomena of Polarization Switching in Ferroelectrics

Anton V. Ievlev, Chance C. Brown, Joshua C. Agar, Gabriel A. Velarde, Lane W. Martin, Alex Belianinov, Petro Maksymovych, Sergei V. Kalinin, Olga S. Ovchinnikova

Functional Atomic Force Microscopy Group

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

18 Scopus citations

Abstract

Polarization switching is a fundamental feature of ferroelectric materials, enabling a plethora of applications and captivating the attention of the scientific community for over half a century. Many previous studies considered ferroelectric switching as a purely physical process, whereas polarization is fully controlled by the superposition of electric fields. However, screening charge is required for thermodynamic stability of the single domain state that is of interest in many technological applications. The screening process has always been assumed to be fast; thus, the rate-limiting phenomena were believed to be domain nucleation and domain wall dynamics. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that polarization switching under an atomic force microscopy tip leads to reversible ionic motion in the top 3 nm of PbZr _0.2 Ti _0.8 O ₃ surface layer. This evidence points to a strong chemical component to a process believed to be purely physical and has major implications for understanding ferroelectric materials, making ferroelectric devices, and interpreting local ferroelectric switching.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	38217-38222
Number of pages	6
Journal	ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
Volume	10
Issue number	44
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b13034
State	Published - Nov 7 2018

Funding

This research was conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility, and using instrumentation within ORNL’s Materials Characterization Core provided by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract no. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. AVI and OSO were supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract no. DE-AC0500OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for the United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy. gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Science	DE-AC05-00OR22725
Oak Ridge National Laboratory	DE-AC0500OR22725

Keywords

atomic force microscopy
chemical phenomena
ferroelectrics
ionic motion
screening
time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry

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10.1021/acsami.8b13034

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title = "Nanoscale Electrochemical Phenomena of Polarization Switching in Ferroelectrics",

abstract = " Polarization switching is a fundamental feature of ferroelectric materials, enabling a plethora of applications and captivating the attention of the scientific community for over half a century. Many previous studies considered ferroelectric switching as a purely physical process, whereas polarization is fully controlled by the superposition of electric fields. However, screening charge is required for thermodynamic stability of the single domain state that is of interest in many technological applications. The screening process has always been assumed to be fast; thus, the rate-limiting phenomena were believed to be domain nucleation and domain wall dynamics. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that polarization switching under an atomic force microscopy tip leads to reversible ionic motion in the top 3 nm of PbZr 0.2 Ti 0.8 O 3 surface layer. This evidence points to a strong chemical component to a process believed to be purely physical and has major implications for understanding ferroelectric materials, making ferroelectric devices, and interpreting local ferroelectric switching.",

keywords = "atomic force microscopy, chemical phenomena, ferroelectrics, ionic motion, screening, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry",

author = "Ievlev, {Anton V.} and Brown, {Chance C.} and Agar, {Joshua C.} and Velarde, {Gabriel A.} and Martin, {Lane W.} and Alex Belianinov and Petro Maksymovych and Kalinin, {Sergei V.} and Ovchinnikova, {Olga S.}",

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AU - Brown, Chance C.

AU - Agar, Joshua C.

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AU - Martin, Lane W.

AU - Belianinov, Alex

AU - Maksymovych, Petro

AU - Kalinin, Sergei V.

AU - Ovchinnikova, Olga S.

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AB - Polarization switching is a fundamental feature of ferroelectric materials, enabling a plethora of applications and captivating the attention of the scientific community for over half a century. Many previous studies considered ferroelectric switching as a purely physical process, whereas polarization is fully controlled by the superposition of electric fields. However, screening charge is required for thermodynamic stability of the single domain state that is of interest in many technological applications. The screening process has always been assumed to be fast; thus, the rate-limiting phenomena were believed to be domain nucleation and domain wall dynamics. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that polarization switching under an atomic force microscopy tip leads to reversible ionic motion in the top 3 nm of PbZr 0.2 Ti 0.8 O 3 surface layer. This evidence points to a strong chemical component to a process believed to be purely physical and has major implications for understanding ferroelectric materials, making ferroelectric devices, and interpreting local ferroelectric switching.

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Nanoscale Electrochemical Phenomena of Polarization Switching in Ferroelectrics

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