Field enhancement of electronic conductance at ferroelectric domain walls

Vasudevan, Rama K.; Cao, Ye; Laanait, Nouamane; Ievlev, Anton; Li, Linglong; Yang, Jan-Chi; Chu, Ying-Hao; Chen, Long-Qing; Kalinin, Sergei V.; Maksymovych, Petro

doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01334-5

Title: Field enhancement of electronic conductance at ferroelectric domain walls

Journal Article · Mon Nov 06 00:00:00 EST 2017 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01334-5· OSTI ID:1414693

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^[1]; Li, Linglong ^[2]; Yang, Jan-Chi ^[3];

^[4]; Chen, Long-Qing ^[5];

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Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Science, Inst. for Functional Imaging of Materials
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Science, Inst. for Functional Imaging of Materials; Xi'an Jiaotong Univ. (China). Multi-disciplinary Materials Research Center, Frontier Inst. of Science and Technology
National Cheng Kung Univ., Tainan City (Taiwan). Dept. of Physics
National Chiao Tung Univ., Hsinchu (Taiwan). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering; Academia Sinica, Taipei (Taiwan). Inst. of Physics
Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering

Ferroelectric domain walls have continued to attract widespread attention due to both the novelty of the phenomena observed and the ability to reliably pattern them in nanoscale dimensions. But, the conductivity mechanisms remain in debate, particularly around nominally uncharged walls. Here, we posit a conduction mechanism relying on field-modification effect from polarization re-orientation and the structure of the reverse-domain nucleus. Through conductive atomic force microscopy measurements on an ultra-thin (001) BiFeO₃ thin film, in combination with phase-field simulations, we show that the field-induced twisted domain nucleus formed at domain walls results in local-field enhancement around the region of the atomic force microscope tip. In conjunction with slight barrier lowering, these two effects are sufficient to explain the observed emission current distribution. Our results suggest that different electronic properties at domain walls are not necessary to observe localized enhancement in domain wall currents.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725; FG02-07ER46417

OSTI ID:: 1414693

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 8, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 25 works

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