Polarization Switching Dynamics Governed by Thermodynamic Nucleation Process in Ultrathin Ferroelectric Films

Abstract

A long standing problem of domain switching process - how domains nucleate - is examined in ultrathin ferroelectric films. We demonstrate that the large depolarization fields in ultrathin films could significantly lower the nucleation energy barrier (U*) to a level comparable to thermal energy (kBT), resulting in power-law like polarization decay behaviors. The "Landauer's paradox": U* is thermally insurmountable is not a critical issue in the polarization switching of ultrathin ferroelectric films. We empirically find a universal relation between the polarization decay behavior and U*/kBT.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Coercive fields in ultrathin BaTiO3 capacitors

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Domain Switching Kinetics in Disordered Ferroelectric Thin Films
• Observation of inhomogeneous domain nucleation in epitaxial Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 capacitors
• Domain wall motion in epitaxial Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 capacitors investigated by modified piezoresponse force microscopy
• A model for retention on short, intermediate and long time-scale in ferroelectric thin films