Depletion and Depolarizing Effects in Ferroelectric Thin-Films and Their Manifestations in Switching and Fatigue

Enrico Colla, Nava Setter, Alexander Tagantsev
1995
Article

Résumé

The manifestations of semiconductor depletion and depolarizing effects in switching and fatigue are studied and compared. It is shown that these effects play important but quite different roles in switching. The depletion effect strongly influences the values of the coercive field, E(c), and is responsible for its film-thickness dependence. The depolarizing effect influences significantly other parameters of the hysteresis loops. It is shown that the inverse thickness dependence of E(c) can not be attributed to the presence of a non-switching layer. Contribution of the effects in question to fatigue of the loop parameters is discussed.

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Identification of Passive Layer in Ferroelectric Thin-Films from Their Switching Parameters

Enrico Colla, Nava Setter, Alexander Tagantsev

The switching of the sandwich structure ''ferroelectric+thin dielectric layer'' is theoretically studied. The behavior of the remanent polarization, P-r, coercive field, E(c), maximal polarization on the loop, P-s, and the slope of the hysteresis loop at E(c) as a function of both, the relative thickness of the layer (the thickness of the dielectric divided by the thickness of the ferroelectric) and the amplitude of the measuring field, is analyzed. It is shown that the effect of the layer on P-r and the slope at E(c) is qualitatively different from that on E(c) and P-s. As the result of this analysis the set of characteristic features of the sandwich with the variable relative thickness of the dielectric layer have been have formulated. These characteristic features can be used for the identification of the presence of such a dielectric layer using the data on the switching parameters of the system. It is shown that the increase of the coercive field with increasing relative thickness of the dielectric layer, which was considered as an important sign of the presence of the dielectric layer, is not a real property of the sandwich structure but rather an artifact of the approximations which were used in the analysis performed by the previous workers. In fact, E(c) is a decreasing function of the relative thickness of the dielectric layer. (C) 1995 American Institute of Physics.

1995

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Domain nucleation behavior in ferroelectric films with thin and ultrathin top electrodes versus insulating top layers

Ludwig Feigl, Nava Setter

The effect of varying the thickness of Pt top electrodes made by the electron beam induced deposition technique on the domain nucleation characteristics of Pb(Zr,Ti)O-3 films has been investigated by piezoresponse force microscopy. The advantage of this experimental setup is that the nucleation position can be precisely controlled allowing comparison between two capacitor structures with different top electrode thicknesses and negating the role of defect-induced polarization switching scenarios. In the ultrathin limit (< 5 nm), the coercive biases of polarization switching change substantially relative to thicker electrodes, from - 4.6 to -2.6 V and from + 3.5 to 5.5 V respectively, which we link to a work function size effect. The evolution of the piezoresponse and coercive biases as a function of hysteresis loop cycling is presented and contrasted with that obtained on the bare film surface with no top electrode. To provide a counterpoint to the observed effects with top electrodes, we have demonstrated the variation in switching due to a top silicon oxide insulating layer. This work has revealed a method which could be used to control nucleation bias in ferroelectric thin film systems. (C) 2017 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Elsevier Science Sa2017

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The present study aims at a better understanding of the high piezoelectric properties encountered in lead-based ferroelectrics by focusing on the extrinsic contributions to the response. The main characteristics of these materials are the highly nonlinear character of the electro-mechanical response and the presence of a morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) where properties are reaching a maximum. Thus, our approach was first to develop a new description for the piezoelectric hysteresis and nonlinearities and second to investigate MPB effects on the extrinsic contributions to the piezoelectric response. For these purposes, lead titanate (PT), lead zirconate titanate (PZT), and lead nickel niobate-lead zirconate titanate solid solution (PNN-PZT) were chosen as prototype compositions. The sample preparation was classical for the first two compounds whereas two new synthesis routes of PNN-PZT were developed. The first consists in the preparation of a B-site precursor combining all the perovskite B-site cations before calcination with lead oxide, enhancing chemical homogeneity and insuring good reproducibility in the final properties. The second processing method aimed at more time efficiency: the use of a nickel hydroxy-carbonate instead of nickel oxide permitted to obtain in one single calcination step a pure perovskite phase exhibiting properties as high as those obtained for two firing steps procedures. The piezoelectric hysteresis and nonlinearity description was undertaken using the Preisach formalism, first developed in ferromagnetism. This approach considers that each hysteretic system satisfying the wiping-out and the congruency properties can be seen as composed of bistable units characterized by distributed coercive and bias fields. In our case, the use of a general expression for the unit parameters distribution function permitted to describe the most significant piezoelectric coefficient nonlinearities such as applied field dependence, saturation or threshold fields. Moreover, a minimal expression describing the piezoelectric nonlinearity in lead-based compounds was derived from experimental determination of the distribution function topography. Advanced piezoelectric hysteresis modelling was attained by coupling the classical viscous descriptions with Preisach-inspired loops expressions. This allowed to separate piezoelectric losses into viscous and field dependent parts. Moreover, the possibility of extracting distribution function parameters from the loops was established. The versatility of the Preisach hysteresis description was also demonstrated by deriving pinched ferroelectric loops from the supposed microscopical mechanisms in hard-doped ferroelectrics. Morphotropic phase boundary study started with the derivation of a composition-temperature phase diagram for PNN-PZT using dielectric and pyroelectric measurements along with X-ray diffraction. The MPB of this solid solution was shown to be strongly curved toward the rhombohedral side. Therefore, certain compositions undergo a tetragonal to rhombohedral transition upon cooling. The influence of electric field and thermal history on this morphotropic transition was first investigated in view of optimizing the poling conditions of such materials. Then, the piezoelectric extrinsic contributions at MPB for both PZT and PNN-PZT were studied as a function of composition and temperature. The peak of properties occurring in this region was assigned to intrinsic effects coupled with an extension of the irreversible contributions. Using the developed hysteresis and nonlinearity formalism, this extrinsic contributions increase could be related to an extended response of each defect rather than to an increase in the defects density.

EPFL2001

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