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    Prominent Size Effects without a Depolarization Field Observed in Ultrathin Ferroelectric Oxide Membranes

    Haoying Sun1,2, Jiahui Gu1,2, Yongqiang Li3,4, Tula R. Paudel5,6, Di Liu7, Jierong Wang1,2, Yipeng Zang1,2,8, Chengyi Gu1,2, Jiangfeng Yang1,2 et al.

    Wenjie Sun1,2, Zhengbin Gu1,2, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal5,9, Junming Liu3, Houbing Huang7, Di Wu1,2,*, and Yuefeng Nie1,2,†

    • 1National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Artificial Functional Materials, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
    • 2Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
    • 3National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
    • 4State Key Laboratory of Laser Interaction with Matter, Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710024, China
    • 5Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68583, USA
    • 6Department of Physics, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota 57701, USA
    • 7Advanced Research Institute of Multidisciplinary Science, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
    • 8School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China
    • 9Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, Nebraska 68588, USA

    • *diwu@nju.edu.cn
    • †ynie@nju.edu.cn
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    Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 126801 – Published 21 March, 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.126801

    Abstract

    The increasing miniaturization of electronics requires a better understanding of material properties at the nanoscale. Many studies have shown that there is a ferroelectric size limit in oxides, below which the ferroelectricity will be strongly suppressed due to the depolarization field, and whether such a limit still exists in the absence of the depolarization field remains unclear. Here, by applying uniaxial strain, we obtain pure in-plane polarized ferroelectricity in ultrathin SrTiO3 membranes, providing a clean system with high tunability to explore ferroelectric size effects especially the thickness-dependent ferroelectric instability with no depolarization field. Surprisingly, the domain size, ferroelectric transition temperature, and critical strain for room-temperature ferroelectricity all exhibit significant thickness dependence. These results indicate that the stability of ferroelectricity is suppressed (enhanced) by increasing the surface or bulk ratio (strain), which can be explained by considering the thickness-dependent dipole-dipole interactions within the transverse Ising model. Our study provides new insights into ferroelectric size effects and sheds light on the applications of ferroelectric thin films in nanoelectronics.

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    Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 126801– Published 21 March, 2023
    • Received 26 January 2022
    • Revised 28 June 2022
    • Accepted 2 February 2023
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