Field enhancement of electronic conductance at ferroelectric domain walls
Abstract
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.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
[1];
[1];
[4];
[1];
[1]
- 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
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1414693
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-00OR22725; FG02-07ER46417
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 8; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; ferroelectrics and multiferroics; nanoscale materials
Citation Formats
Vasudevan, Rama K., Cao, Ye, Laanait, Nouamane, Ievlev, Anton, Li, Linglong, Yang, Jan-Chi, Chu, Ying-Hao, Chen, Long-Qing, Kalinin, Sergei V., and Maksymovych, Petro. Field enhancement of electronic conductance at ferroelectric domain walls. United States: N. p., 2017.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01334-5.
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. Field enhancement of electronic conductance at ferroelectric domain walls. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01334-5
Vasudevan, Rama K., Cao, Ye, Laanait, Nouamane, Ievlev, Anton, Li, Linglong, Yang, Jan-Chi, Chu, Ying-Hao, Chen, Long-Qing, Kalinin, Sergei V., and Maksymovych, Petro. Mon .
"Field enhancement of electronic conductance at ferroelectric domain walls". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-01334-5. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1414693.
@article{osti_1414693,
title = {Field enhancement of electronic conductance at ferroelectric domain walls},
author = {Vasudevan, Rama K. and Cao, Ye and Laanait, Nouamane and Ievlev, Anton and Li, Linglong and Yang, Jan-Chi and Chu, Ying-Hao and Chen, Long-Qing and Kalinin, Sergei V. and Maksymovych, Petro},
abstractNote = {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.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-017-01334-5},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = 1,
volume = 8,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Nov 06 00:00:00 EST 2017},
month = {Mon Nov 06 00:00:00 EST 2017}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 25 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Estimating the Dimension of a Model
journal, March 1978
- Schwarz, Gideon
- The Annals of Statistics, Vol. 6, Issue 2
Nanoscale Domain Control in Multiferroic BiFeO3 Thin Films
journal, September 2006
- Chu, Y.-H.; Zhan, Q.; Martin, L. W.
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 18, Issue 17, p. 2307-2311
Conduction at domain walls in insulating Pb(Zr$_{0.2}$Ti$_{0.8}$)O$_3$ thin films
text, January 2012
- Guyonnet, J.; Gaponenko, I.; Gariglio, S.
- arXiv
Multiferroic BiFeO3 thin films processed via chemical solution deposition: Structural and electrical characterization
journal, May 2005
- Iakovlev, S.; Solterbeck, C. -H.; Kuhnke, M.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 97, Issue 9
Mesoscale flux-closure domain formation in single-crystal BaTiO3
journal, July 2011
- McQuaid, R. G. P.; McGilly, L. J.; Sharma, P.
- Nature Communications, Vol. 2, Article No. 404
Electrical Control of Multiferroic Orderings in Mixed-Phase BiFeO3 Films
journal, May 2012
- Chen, Yi-Chun; He, Qing; Chu, Feng-Nan
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 24, Issue 22
Nanoscale Origins of Nonlinear Behavior in Ferroic Thin Films
journal, August 2012
- Vasudevan, Rama K.; Okatan, M. Baris; Duan, Chen
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 1
Persistent conductive footprints of 109° domain walls in bismuth ferrite films
journal, March 2014
- Stolichnov, I.; Iwanowska, M.; Colla, E.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 13
Conduction at domain walls in oxide multiferroics
journal, January 2009
- Seidel, J.; Martin, L. W.; He, Q.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 8, Issue 3
Full-field X-ray reflection microscopy of epitaxial thin-films
journal, October 2014
- Laanait, Nouamane; Zhang, Zhan; Schlepütz, Christian M.
- Journal of Synchrotron Radiation, Vol. 21, Issue 6
Anisotropic conductance at improper ferroelectric domain walls
journal, February 2012
- Meier, D.; Seidel, J.; Cano, A.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 11, Issue 4
Anisotropic conductance at improper ferroelectric domain walls
journal, February 2012
- Meier, D.; Seidel, J.; Cano, A.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 11, Issue 4
Efficient Photovoltaic Current Generation at Ferroelectric Domain Walls
journal, September 2011
- Seidel, Jan; Fu, Deyi; Yang, Seung-Yeul
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 12
Local conductivity and the role of vacancies around twin walls of (001)−BiFeO 3 thin films
journal, September 2012
- Farokhipoor, S.; Noheda, B.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 112, Issue 5
Domain wall conduction in multiaxial ferroelectrics
text, January 2011
- Eliseev, Eugene A.; Morozovska, Anna N.; Svechnikov, George S.
- arXiv
Conduction at Domain Walls in Insulating Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 Thin Films
journal, September 2011
- Guyonnet, Jill; Gaponenko, Iaroslav; Gariglio, Stefano
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 45
Domain wall conduction in multiaxial ferroelectrics
journal, January 2012
- Eliseev, Eugene A.; Morozovska, Anna N.; Svechnikov, George S.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 85, Issue 4
Bundles of polytwins as meta-elastic domains in the thin polycrystalline simple multi-ferroic system PZT
journal, January 2010
- Ivry, Yachin; Chu, D. P.; Durkan, Colm
- Nanotechnology, Vol. 21, Issue 6
Domain Wall Conduction and Polarization-Mediated Transport in Ferroelectrics
journal, April 2013
- Vasudevan, Rama K.; Wu, Weida; Guest, Jeffrey R.
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 20
Spatially Inhomogeneous Metal-Insulator Transition in Doped Manganites
journal, September 1999
- Fäth, M.
- Science, Vol. 285, Issue 5433
Electronic Properties of Isosymmetric Phase Boundaries in Highly Strained Ca-Doped BiFeO 3
journal, April 2014
- Seidel, Jan; Trassin, Morgan; Zhang, Yi
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 26, Issue 25
Observation of a periodic array of flux-closure quadrants in strained ferroelectric PbTiO3 films
journal, April 2015
- Tang, Y. L.; Zhu, Y. L.; Ma, X. L.
- Science, Vol. 348, Issue 6234
Phase-Field Method of Phase Transitions/Domain Structures in Ferroelectric Thin Films: A Review
journal, June 2008
- Chen, Long-Qing
- Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol. 91, Issue 6
Exploring Topological Defects in Epitaxial BiFeO 3 Thin Films
journal, January 2011
- Vasudevan, Rama K.; Chen, Yi-Chun; Tai, Hsiang-Hua
- ACS Nano, Vol. 5, Issue 2
Enhancement of the anisotropic photocurrent in ferroelectric oxides by strain gradients
journal, August 2015
- Chu, Kanghyun; Jang, Byung-Kweon; Sung, Ji Ho
- Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 10, Issue 11
Enhanced electric conductivity at ferroelectric vortex cores in BiFeO3
journal, November 2011
- Balke, Nina; Winchester, Benjamin; Ren, Wei
- Nature Physics, Vol. 8, Issue 1
Nucleation, growth, and control of ferroelectric-ferroelastic domains in thin polycrystalline films
journal, November 2012
- Ivry, Yachin; Scott, James F.; Salje, Ekhard K. H.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 86, Issue 20
Atomic-Scale Evolution of Local Electronic Structure Across Multiferroic Domain Walls
journal, February 2011
- Chiu, Ya-Ping; Chen, Yu-Ting; Huang, Bo-Chao
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 13
Tunable Metallic Conductance in Ferroelectric Nanodomains
journal, December 2011
- Maksymovych, Peter; Morozovska, Anna N.; Yu, Pu
- Nano Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Direct Observation of Continuous Electric Dipole Rotation in Flux-Closure Domains in Ferroelectric Pb(Zr,Ti)O3
journal, March 2011
- Jia, C. -L.; Urban, K. W.; Alexe, M.
- Science, Vol. 331, Issue 6023
Spontaneous Vortex Nanodomain Arrays at Ferroelectric Heterointerfaces
journal, February 2011
- Nelson, Christopher T.; Winchester, Benjamin; Zhang, Yi
- Nano Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 2
Negative Differential Resistivity and Positive Temperature Coefficient of Resistivity effect in the diffusion limited current of ferroelectric thin film capacitors
text, January 2004
- Dawber, M.; Scott, J. F.
- arXiv
Conducting Domain Walls in Lithium Niobate Single Crystals
journal, May 2012
- Schröder, Mathias; Haußmann, Alexander; Thiessen, Andreas
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 22, Issue 18
Towards reversible control of domain wall conduction in Pb(Zr 0.2 Ti 0.8 )O 3 thin films
journal, April 2015
- Gaponenko, I.; Tückmantel, P.; Karthik, J.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 106, Issue 16
Observation of polar vortices in oxide superlattices
journal, January 2016
- Yadav, A. K.; Nelson, C. T.; Hsu, S. L.
- Nature, Vol. 530, Issue 7589
Polarization charge as a reconfigurable quasi-dopant in ferroelectric thin films
journal, June 2015
- Crassous, Arnaud; Sluka, Tomas; Tagantsev, Alexander K.
- Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 10, Issue 7
Direct imaging of the coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface
text, January 2011
- Bert, J. A.; Kalisky, B.; Bell, C.
- arXiv
Enhanced electromechanical response of ferroelectrics due to charged domain walls
journal, January 2012
- Sluka, Tomas; Tagantsev, Alexander K.; Damjanovic, Dragan
- Nature Communications, Vol. 3, Issue 1
Conduction through 71° Domain Walls in Thin Films
journal, September 2011
- Farokhipoor, S.; Noheda, B.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 12
Labile Ferroelastic Nanodomains in Bilayered Ferroelectric Thin Films
journal, September 2009
- Anbusathaiah, Varatharajan; Kan, Daisuke; Kartawidjaja, Fransiska C.
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 21, Issue 34
The influence of the top-contact metal on the ferroelectric properties of epitaxial ferroelectric Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 thin films
journal, December 2008
- Pintilie, Lucian; Vrejoiu, Ionela; Hesse, Dietrich
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 104, Issue 11
Ionized oxygen vacancy-related electrical conductivity in (Pb 1− x La x )(Zr 0.90 Ti 0.10 ) 1− x /4 O 3 ceramics
journal, October 2008
- Peláiz-Barranco, A.; Guerra, J. D. S.; López-Noda, R.
- Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 41, Issue 21
Domain-wall conduction in ferroelectric BiFeO3 controlled by accumulation of charged defects
journal, November 2016
- Rojac, Tadej; Bencan, Andreja; Drazic, Goran
- Nature Materials, Vol. 16, Issue 3
Tunable Metallic Conductance in Ferroelectric Nanodomains
journal, December 2011
- Maksymovych, Peter; Morozovska, Anna N.; Yu, Pu
- Nano Letters, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Dynamic Conductivity of Ferroelectric Domain Walls in BiFeO 3
journal, May 2011
- Maksymovych, Peter; Seidel, Jan; Chu, Ying Hao
- Nano Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 5
Bundles of polytwins as meta-elastic domains in the thin polycrystalline simple multi-ferroic system PZT
journal, January 2010
- Ivry, Yachin; Chu, D. P.; Durkan, Colm
- Nanotechnology, Vol. 21, Issue 6
A high-mobility electron gas at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterointerface
journal, January 2004
- Ohtomo, A.; Hwang, H. Y.
- Nature, Vol. 427, Issue 6973
Free-electron gas at charged domain walls in insulating BaTiO3
journal, May 2013
- Sluka, Tomas; Tagantsev, Alexander K.; Bednyakov, Petr
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Friendship stability in adolescence is associated with ventral striatum responses to vicarious rewards
journal, January 2021
- Schreuders, Elisabeth; Braams, Barbara R.; Crone, Eveline A.
- Nature Communications, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Correlated polarization switching in the proximity of a domain wall
journal, July 2010
- Aravind, Vasudeva Rao; Morozovska, A. N.; Bhattacharyya, Saswata
- Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 2
Local conductivity and the role of vacancies around twin walls of (001)−BiFeO 3 thin films
journal, September 2012
- Farokhipoor, S.; Noheda, B.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 112, Issue 5
Local polarization dynamics in ferroelectric materials
journal, April 2010
- Kalinin, Sergei V.; Morozovska, Anna N.; Chen, Long Qing
- Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 73, Issue 5, Article No. 056502
Spatially Inhomogeneous Metal-Insulator Transition in Doped Manganites
journal, September 1999
- Fäth, M.
- Science, Vol. 285, Issue 5433
Domain Bundle Boundaries in Single Crystal BaTiO 3 Lamellae: Searching for Naturally Forming Dipole Flux-Closure/Quadrupole Chains
journal, October 2010
- McGilly, L. J.; Schilling, A.; Gregg, J. M.
- Nano Letters, Vol. 10, Issue 10
Deterministic control of ferroelastic switching in multiferroic materials
journal, October 2009
- Balke, N.; Choudhury, S.; Jesse, S.
- Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 4, Issue 12, p. 868-875
Microwave a.c. conductivity of domain walls in ferroelectric thin films
journal, May 2016
- Tselev, Alexander; Yu, Pu; Cao, Ye
- Nature Communications, Vol. 7, Issue 1
Negative differential resistivity and positive temperature coefficient of resistivity effect in the diffusion-limited current of ferroelectric thin-film capacitors
journal, November 2004
- Dawber, M.; Scott, J. F.
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 16, Issue 49
Direct imaging of the coexistence of ferromagnetism and superconductivity at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface
journal, September 2011
- Bert, Julie A.; Kalisky, Beena; Bell, Christopher
- Nature Physics, Vol. 7, Issue 10, p. 767-771
Flux Closure Vortexlike Domain Structures in Ferroelectric Thin Films
journal, May 2010
- Ivry, Y.; Chu, D. P.; Scott, J. F.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 20
Band gap and Schottky barrier heights of multiferroic BiFeO3
journal, March 2007
- Clark, S. J.; Robertson, J.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 90, Issue 13
Conduction of Topologically Protected Charged Ferroelectric Domain Walls
journal, February 2012
- Wu, Weida; Horibe, Y.; Lee, N.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 108, Issue 7
Electric control of straight stripe conductive mixed-phase nanostructures in La-doped BiFeO3
journal, January 2014
- Kim, Kwang-Eun; Jang, Byung-Kweon; Heo, Yooun
- NPG Asia Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Electrical conduction in nanodomains in congruent lithium tantalate single crystal
journal, January 2014
- Cho, Yasuo
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 4
Domain Wall Conductivity in La-Doped
journal, November 2010
- Seidel, J.; Maksymovych, P.; Batra, Y.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 105, Issue 19, Article No. 197603
Ferroelectric polarization-leakage current relation in high quality epitaxial films
journal, March 2007
- Pintilie, L.; Vrejoiu, I.; Hesse, D.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 75, Issue 10
Intrinsic space charge layers and field enhancement in ferroelectric nanojunctions
journal, July 2015
- Cao, Ye; Ievlev, Anton V.; Morozovska, Anna N.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 2
Nanoscale polarization switching mechanisms in multiferroic BiFeO 3 thin films
journal, March 2011
- Béa, H.; Ziegler, B.; Bibes, M.
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 23, Issue 14
Non-volatile domain nucleation and growth in multiferroic BiFeO 3 films
journal, May 2011
- Chen, Yi-Chun; Wang, Guang-Fu; Tai, Hsiang-Hua
- Nanotechnology, Vol. 22, Issue 25
Direct Observation of Pinning and Bowing of a Single Ferroelectric Domain Wall
journal, May 1999
- Yang, T. J.; Gopalan, Venkatraman; Swart, P. J.
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 82, Issue 20
Topologically protected surface states in a centrosymmetric superconductor β-PdBi2
journal, October 2015
- Sakano, M.; Okawa, K.; Kanou, M.
- Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1
Works referencing / citing this record:
Characterization of domain distributions by second harmonic generation in ferroelectrics
journal, July 2018
- Zhang, Yuan; Zhang, Yi; Guo, Quan
- npj Computational Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Physics and applications of charged domain walls
journal, November 2018
- Bednyakov, Petr S.; Sturman, Boris I.; Sluka, Tomas
- npj Computational Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Intrinsic Conductance of Domain Walls in BiFeO 3
journal, June 2019
- Zhang, Yi; Lu, Haidong; Yan, Xingxu
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 36
Segregation Induced Self-Assembly of Highly Active Perovskite for Rapid Oxygen Reduction Reaction
journal, September 2018
- Li, Yifeng; Zhang, Wenqiang; Wu, Tong
- Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 8, Issue 29
Manipulation of Conductive Domain Walls in Confined Ferroelectric Nanoislands
journal, May 2019
- Tian, Guo; Yang, Wenda; Song, Xiao
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 32
Dielectric relaxation and local domain structures of ferroelectric PIMNT and PMNT single crystals
journal, October 2019
- Li, Kai; Sun, Enwei; Qi, Xudong
- Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Vol. 103, Issue 3