The Rayleigh law in silicon doped hafnium oxide ferroelectric thin films |
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| Authors: | Yan Guan Dayu Zhou Jin Xu Xiaohua Liu Fei Cao Xianlin Dong Johannes Müller Tony Schenk Uwe Schroeder |
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| Institution: | 1. Key Laboratory of Materials Modification by Laser, Ion, and Electron Beams (Ministry of Education), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, P.R. China;2. State Key Laboratory of Electronic Thin Films and Integrated Devices, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, P.R. China;3. Department of Electronic Engineering, Dalian Neusoft University of Information, Dalian, P.R. China;4. Key Laboratory of Inorganic Functional Materials and Devices, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, P.R. China;5. Fraunhofer IPMS‐CNT, Dresden, Germany;6. NaMLab gGmbH/TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany |
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| Abstract: | A wealth of studies have confirmed that the low‐field hysteresis behaviour of ferroelectric bulk ceramics and thin films can be described using Rayleigh relations, and irreversible domain wall motion across the array of pining defects has been commonly accepted as the underlying micro‐mechanism. Recently, HfO2 thin films incorporated with various dopants were reported to show pronounced ferroelectricity, however, their microscopic domain structure remains unclear till now. In this work, the effects of the applied electric field amplitude, frequency and temperature on the sub‐coercive polarization reversal properties were investigated for 10 nm thick Si‐doped HfO2 thin films. The applicability of the Rayleigh law to ultra‐thin ferroelectric films was first confirmed, indicating the existence of a multi‐domain structure. Since the grain size is about 20–30 nm, a direct observation of domain walls within the grains is rather challenging and this indirect method is a feasible approach to resolve the domain structure. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim) |
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| Keywords: | Si‐doped HfO2 thin films Rayleigh law ferroelectric materials |
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