DOI: 10.1063/1.3000459. The influence of 180° ferroelectric domain wall width on the threshold field for wall motion

The influence of 180° ferroelectric domain wall width on the threshold field for wall motion

10.1063/1.3000459

Crossref journal-article

AIP Publishing

Journal of Applied Physics (317)

Abstract

Unlike ideal 180° ferroelectric walls that are a unit cell wide (∼0.5 nm), real walls in ferroelectrics have been reported to be many nanometers wide (1–10 nm). Using scanning nonlinear dielectric microscopy of lithium niobate (LiNbO3) and lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) ferroelectrics, we show that the wall width at surfaces can vary considerably and even reach ∼100 nm in places where polar defects adjoin a wall. The consequence of such variable wall widths is investigated on the specific property of threshold field required for wall motion. Using microscopic phase-field modeling, we show that the threshold field for moving an antiparallel ferroelectric domain wall dramatically drops by two to three orders of magnitude if the wall was diffuse by only ∼1–2 nm, which agrees with experimental wall widths and threshold fields for these materials. Modeling also shows that wall broadening due to its intersection with a surface will influence the threshold field for wall motion only for very thin films (1–10 nm) where the surface broadening influences the bulk wall width. Such pre-existing and slightly diffuse domain walls with low threshold fields for wall motion may offer a general mechanism to explain significantly lower experimental coercive fields for domain reversal in ferroelectrics as compared to the thermodynamic predictions.

Bibliography

Choudhury, S., Li, Y., Odagawa, N., Vasudevarao, A., Tian, L., Capek, P., Dierolf, V., Morozovska, A. N., Eliseev, E. A., Kalinin, S., Cho, Y., Chen, L., & Gopalan, V. (2008). The influence of 180Â° ferroelectric domain wall width on the threshold field for wall motion. Journal of Applied Physics, 104(8).

Authors 13

Samrat Choudhury (first)
Yulan Li (additional)
Nozomi Odagawa (additional)
Aravind Vasudevarao (additional)
L. Tian (additional)
Pavel Capek (additional)
Volkmar Dierolf (additional)
Anna N. Morozovska (additional)
Eugene A. Eliseev (additional)
Sergei Kalinin (additional)
Yasuo Cho (additional)
Long-qing Chen (additional)
Venkatraman Gopalan (additional)

References 36 Referenced 54

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Dates

Type	When
Created	16 years, 9 months ago (Oct. 30, 2008, 6:10 p.m.)
Deposited	2 years, 1 month ago (July 3, 2023, 7:59 p.m.)
Indexed	4 weeks, 1 day ago (July 30, 2025, 6:52 a.m.)
Issued	16 years, 10 months ago (Oct. 15, 2008)
Published	16 years, 10 months ago (Oct. 15, 2008)
Published Online	16 years, 9 months ago (Oct. 30, 2008)
Published Print	16 years, 10 months ago (Oct. 15, 2008)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Choudhury_2008, title={The influence of 180° ferroelectric domain wall width on the threshold field for wall motion}, volume={104}, ISSN={1089-7550}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3000459}, DOI={10.1063/1.3000459}, number={8}, journal={Journal of Applied Physics}, publisher={AIP Publishing}, author={Choudhury, Samrat and Li, Yulan and Odagawa, Nozomi and Vasudevarao, Aravind and Tian, L. and Capek, Pavel and Dierolf, Volkmar and Morozovska, Anna N. and Eliseev, Eugene A. and Kalinin, Sergei and Cho, Yasuo and Chen, Long-qing and Gopalan, Venkatraman}, year={2008}, month=oct }

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  "references-count": 36,
  "journal-issue": {
    "issue": "8",
    "published-print": {
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          15
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  },
  "URL": "http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3000459",
  "relation": {},
  "ISSN": [
    "0021-8979",
    "1089-7550"
  ],
  "subject": [],
  "published-other": {
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        10,
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  "published": {
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  "article-number": "084107"
}