Invited Paper SS+OX-WeM1
Structure and Dynamics of Oxide Surfaces and Interfaces

Wednesday, October 31, 2012, 8:00 am, Room 22

Ferroelectric materials are characterized by a spontaneous electric polarization that can be reoriented between different orientations by an applied electric field. The ability to form and manipulate domains with different polarization orientations at the nanometer scale is key to the utility of ferroelectric materials for devices such as nonvolatile memories. The ferroelectric switching occurs through the nucleation and growth of favorably oriented domains and is strongly mediated by defects and interfaces. Thus, it is critical to understand how the ferroelectric domain forms, grows, and interacts with defects. In this talk I will present the nanoscale ferroelectric switching of BiFeO₃ and PbZr_0.2Ti_0.8O₃ thin films under an applied electric field using in situ transmission electron microscopy with atomic resolution. We follow the kinetics and dynamics of ferroelectric switching at millisecond temporal and subangstrom spatial resolution. We observed localized nucleation events at the electrode interface, domain wall pinning on point defects, the formation of ferroelectric domains localized to the ferroelectric/electrode interface, and domain wall pinning by dislocations. We also find that in writing nanosized domains the domain wall itself can drive backswitching. It was observed that the localized 180° polarization switching in PbZr_0.2Ti_0.8O₃ thin films initially forms domain walls along unstable planes. After removal of the external field, they tend to relax to low energy orientations. In sufficiently small domains this process results in complete backswitching. Our results suggest that even thermodynamically favored domain orientations are still subject to retention loss, which must be mitigated by overcoming a critical domain size.