In Situ Observation of Domain Wall Lateral Creeping in a Ferroelectric Capacitor

Cai，Songhua1; Guo，Changqing2,3; Niu，Ben4; Xie，Lin5; Addiego，Christopher6; Wu，Di4; Wang，Peng7; Lau，Shu Ping1; Huang，Houbing2,3; Pan，Xiaoqing6,8

2023

10.1002/adfm.202304606

Advanced Functional Materials   Impact Factor & Quartile

1616-301X

1616-3028

As a promising candidate for next-generation nonvolatile memory devices, ferroelectric oxide films exhibit many emergent phenomena with functional applications, making understanding polarization switching and domain evolution behaviors of fundamental importance. However, tracking domain wall motion in ferroelectric oxide films with high spatial resolution remains challenging. Here, an in situ biasing approach for direct atomic-scale observations of domain nucleation and sideways motion is presented. By accurately controlling the applied electric field, the lateral translational speed of the domain wall can decrease to less than 2.2 Å s, which is observable with atomic resolution STEM imaging. In situ observations on a capacitor structured PbZrTiO/LaSrMnO heterojunction demonstrate the unique creeping behavior of a domain wall under a critical electric field, with the atomic structure of the creeping domain wall revealed. Moreover, the evolution of the metastable domain wall forms an elongated morphology, which contains a large proportion of charged segments. Phase-field simulations unveil the competition between gradient, elastic, and electrostatic energies that decide this unique domain wall creeping and morphology variation. This work paves the way toward a complete fundamental understanding of domain wall physics and potential modulations of domain wall properties in real devices.

domain walls ferroelectric capacitors ferroelectric polarization switching in situ atomic-resolution STEM oxide heterojunctions

SCI

English

NI Journal Papers

Others

Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China[15306021] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China[12104381] ; Department of Applied Physics, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University["1-BD96","1-BDCM"] ; open subject of National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Nanjing University[M34001] ; National Natural Science Foundation of China["51972028","11874199","2019YFA0307900"] ; State Key Development Program for Basic Research of China[52232001] ; National Basic Research Program of China[2015CB654901] ; Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering[DE-SC0014430] ; Hong Kong Research Grants Council[C5029-18E]

Chemistry ; Science & Technology - Other Topics ; Materials Science ; Physics

Chemistry, Multidisciplinary ; Chemistry, Physical ; Nanoscience & Nanotechnology ; Materials Science, Multidisciplinary ; Physics, Applied ; Physics, Condensed Matter

WOS:001052285900001

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH

MATERIALS SCIENCE

2-s2.0-85168394981

Scopus

1.Department of Applied Physics,The Hong Kong Polytechnic University,Kowloon,Hung Hom,999077,Hong Kong
2.School of Materials Science & Engineering,Beijing Institute of Technology,Beijing,100081,China
3.Advanced Research Institute of Multidisciplinary Science,Beijing Institute of Technology,Beijing,100081,China
4.National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures,Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials,College of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures,Nanjing University,Nanjing,210093,China
5.Department of Physics,Southern University of Science and Technology,Shenzhen,518055,China
6.Department of Physics and Astronomy,University of California,Irvine,92697,United States
7.Department of Physics,University of Warwick,Coventry,CV4 7AL,United Kingdom
8.Department of Materials Science and Engineering,University of California,Irvine,92697,United States

Cai，Songhua,Guo，Changqing,Niu，Ben,et al. In Situ Observation of Domain Wall Lateral Creeping in a Ferroelectric Capacitor[J]. Advanced Functional Materials,2023.

Cai，Songhua.,Guo，Changqing.,Niu，Ben.,Xie，Lin.,Addiego，Christopher.,...&Pan，Xiaoqing.(2023).In Situ Observation of Domain Wall Lateral Creeping in a Ferroelectric Capacitor.Advanced Functional Materials.

Cai，Songhua,et al."In Situ Observation of Domain Wall Lateral Creeping in a Ferroelectric Capacitor".Advanced Functional Materials (2023).