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    Ferroelectric Self-Poling in GeTe Films and Crystals
    (Basel : MDPI, 2019) Kriegner, Dominik; Springholz, Gunther; Richter, Carsten; Pilet, Nicolas; Müller, Elisabeth; Capron, Marie; Berger, Helmut; Holý, Václav; Dil, J. Hugo; Krempaský, Juraj
    Ferroelectric materials are used in actuators or sensors because of their non-volatile macroscopic electric polarization. GeTe is the simplest known diatomic ferroelectric endowed with exceedingly complex physics related to its crystalline, amorphous, thermoelectric, and—fairly recently discovered—topological properties, making the material potentially interesting for spintronics applications. Typically, ferroelectric materials possess random oriented domains that need poling to achieve macroscopic polarization. By using X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy complemented with anomalous diffraction and piezo-response force microscopy, we investigated the bulk ferroelectric structure of GeTe crystals and thin films. Both feature multi-domain structures in the form of oblique domains for films and domain colonies inside crystals. Despite these multi-domain structures which are expected to randomize the polarization direction, our experimental results show that at room temperature there is a preferential ferroelectric order remarkably consistent with theoretical predictions from ideal GeTe crystals. This robust self-poled state has high piezoelectricity and additional poling reveals persistent memory effects. © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
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    Huge impact of compressive strain on phase transition temperatures in epitaxial ferroelectric KxNa1-xNbO3 thin films
    (Melville, NY : American Inst. of Physics, 2019) Von Helden, L.; Bogula, L.; Janolin, P.-E.; Hanke, M.; Breuer, T.; Schmidbauer, M.; Ganschow, S.; Schwarzkopf, J.
    We present a study in which ferroelectric phase transition temperatures in epitaxial KxNa1-xNbO3 films are altered systematically by choosing different (110)-oriented rare-earth scandate substrates and by variation of the potassium to sodium ratio. Our results prove the capability to continuously shift the ferroelectric-to-ferroelectric transition from the monoclinic MC to orthorhombic c-phase by about 400 °C via the application of anisotropic compressive strain. The phase transition was investigated in detail by monitoring the temperature dependence of ferroelectric domain patterns using piezoresponse force microscopy and upon analyzing structural changes by means of high resolution X-ray diffraction including X-ray reciprocal space mapping. Moreover, the temperature evolution of the effective piezoelectric coefficient d33,f was determined using double beam laser interferometry, which exhibits a significant dependence on the particular ferroelectric phase. © 2019 Author(s).