Tunable electroresistance and electro-optic effects of transparent molecular ferroelectrics

Journal Article · 30 August 2017 · Science Advances

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1701008 · OSTI ID:1429329

Zhang, Zhuolei ^[1]; Li, Peng-Fei ^[2]; Tang, Yuan-Yuan ^[2]; Wilson, Andrew J.  ^[3]; Willets, Katherine ^[3]; Wuttig, Manfred ^[4]; Xiong, Ren-Gen  ^[2]; Ren, Shenqiang ^[1]

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1. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA (United States). Department of Mechanical Engineering and Temple Materials Institute
2. Southeast University, Nanjing (China)
3. Temple University, Philadelphia, PA (United States). Department of Chemistry
4. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States). Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Recent progress in molecular ferroelectrics (MOFEs) has been overshadowed by the lack of high-quality thin films for device integration. We report a water-based air-processable technique to prepare large-area MOFE thin films, controlled by supersaturation growth at the liquid-air interface under a temperature gradient and external water partial pressure. We used this technique to fabricate ImClO4 thin films and found a large, tunable room temperature electroresistance: a 20-fold resistance variation upon polarization switching. The as-grown films are transparent and consist of a bamboo-like structure of ($$2,\overline{1},0$$) and ($$1,0,\overline{2}$$) structural variants of R3m symmetry with a reversible polarization of 6.7 μC/cm². The resulting ferroelectric domain structure leads to a reversible electromechanical response of d₃₃ = 38.8 pm/V. Polarization switching results in a change of the refractive index, n, of single domains, $$\frac{Δn}{n}$$ = 0.3. The remarkable combination of these characteristics renders MOFEs a prime candidate material for new nanoelectronic devices. The information that we present in this work will open a new area of MOFE thin-film technologies.

• Research Organization: Temple Univ., Philadelphia, PA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0017928; SC0010307
• OSTI ID: 1429329
• Journal Information: Science Advances, Vol. 3, Issue 8; ISSN 2375-2548
• Publisher: AAASCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English