Absence of Critical Thickness in an Ultrathin Improper Ferroelectric Film

Abstract

We study the ferroelectric stability and surface structural properties of an oxygen-terminated hexagonal YMnO${}_3$ ultra-thin film using density functional theory. Under an open circuit boundary condition, the ferroelectric state with the spontaneous polarization normal to the (0001) surface, is found to be metastable in a single domain state despite the presence of a depolarizing field. We establish a connection between the result and the role of improper ferroelectric transition. Our results imply that improper ferroelectric ultrathin films can have rather unique properties that are distinctive from those of very thin films of ordinary ferroelectrics.

arXiv comment4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (12)

• Physics of thin-film ferroelectric oxides
• The ferroelectric transition in YMnO${}_3$ from first principles
• Ab initio study of BaTiO3 and PbTiO3 surfaces in external electric fields
• Ab-initio study of BaTiO3 surfaces
• Ferroelectricity in ultra-thin perovskite films
• Ultrathin films of ferroelectric solid solutions under residual depolarizing field
• Ab initio study of the phase diagram of epitaxial BaTiO3
• A Microscopic Model of Ferroelectricity in Stress-free PbTiO3 Ultrathin Films
• Ab initio calculations of BaTiO3 and PbTiO3 (001) and (011) surface structure
• Epitaxial Growth of Multiferroic YMnO3 on GaN
• Interface effects in ferroelectric PbTiO${}_3$ ultrathin films on a paraelectric substrate
• Spin-Filtering Multiferroic-Semiconductor Heterojunctions

Cited by in corpus (18)

• Colloquium: Physical properties of group-IV monochalcogenide monolayers
• Emergence of ferroelectricity and spin-valley properties in two-dimensional honeycomb binary compounds
• Possibility of Combining Ferroelectricity and Rashba-like spin splitting in Monolayers of 1T-type Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides MX2
• Hyperferroelectrics: proper ferroelectrics with persistent polarization
• Electrical properties of improper ferroelectrics from first principles
• In-Plane Ferroelectric Tunnel Junction
• Epitaxy of hexagonal ABO${}_3$ quantum materials
• Magnetoelectric coupling and decoupling in multiferroic hexagonal YbFeO3 thin films
• Novel magneto-electric multiferroics from first-principles
• Finite-size effects on the ferroelectricity in rhombohedral HfO${}_2$
• New iron-based multiferroics with improper ferroelectricity
• Recent Progress on Multiferroic Hexagonal Rare-Earth Ferrites (h-RFeO3, R = Y,Dy-Lu)
• Improper ferroelectricity in ultrathin hexagonal ferrites film
• Influence of rotational instability on the polarization structure of SrTiO3
• Triggered ferroelectricity in HfO${}_2$ from hybrid phonons and higher-order dynamical charges
• Strong tunability of epitaxial relationship and reconstruction at improper ferroelectric interface
• Effect of the depolarizing field on the domain structure of an improper ferroelectric
• Improper Ferroelectricity at the Monolayer Limit