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Title: Direct observation of oxygen-vacancy-enhanced polarization in a SrTiO3-buffered ferroelectric BaTiO3 film on GaAs

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4936159· OSTI ID:1597708
ORCiD logo [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [2];  [4];  [5];  [5]
  1. Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States); Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  2. Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  3. Texas State Univ., San Marcos, TX (United States)
  4. National Univ. of Singapore (Singapore)
  5. Univ. of Illinois, Chicago, IL (United States)

The integration of functional oxide thin-films on compound semiconductors can lead to a class of reconfigurable spin-based optoelectronic devices if defect-free, fully reversible active layers are stabilized. However, previous first-principles calculations predicted that SrTiO3 thin filmsgrown on Si exhibit pinned ferroelectric behavior that is not switchable, due to the presence of interfacial vacancies. Meanwhile, piezoresponse force microscopy measurements have demonstrated ferroelectricity in BaTiO3 grown on semiconductor substrates. The presence of interfacial oxygen vacancies in such complex-oxide/semiconductor systems remains unexplored, and their effect on ferroelectricity is controversial. Here, we use a combination of aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and first-principles density functional theory modeling to examine the role of interfacial oxygen vacancies on the ferroelectricpolarization of a BaTiO3 thin filmgrown on GaAs. Here, we demonstrate that interfacial oxygen vacancies enhance the polar discontinuity (and thus the single domain, out-of-plane polarization pinning in BaTiO3), and propose that the presence of surface charge screening allows the formation of switchable domains.

Research Organization:
Vanderbilt Univ., Nashville, TN (United States); Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
Grant/Contract Number:
FG02-09ER46554; AC02-05CH11231; SC00112704; AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1597708
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1226397; OSTI ID: 1240594; OSTI ID: 1265974
Report Number(s):
BNL-111795-2016-JA; APPLAB; TRN: US2103176
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 20; ISSN 0003-6951
Publisher:
American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 22 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (3)

Epitaxial growth of (111) BaTiO3 thin films on (0002) GaN substrates with SrTiO3/TiN buffer layers journal April 2019
Epitaxial Oxides on Semiconductors: From Fundamentals to New Devices journal July 2019
Ultrafast collective oxygen-vacancy flow in Ca-doped BiFeO3 journal September 2018