TY - JOUR
KW - Conductivity
KW - Electric fields
KW - Polarization
KW - Domain walls
KW - Ferroelectric materials
KW - Ferroelectricity
KW - Bismuth ferrite
KW - Bismuth
KW - Electronic properties
KW - Topology
KW - Electric conductivity
KW - Ferroelectric
KW - Memristive system
KW - Pinning
KW - Ferrites
AU - P Maksymovych
AU - J Seidel
AU - Y.H Chu
AU - P Wu
AU - A.P Baddorf
AU - L.-Q Chen
AU - S.V Kalinin
AU - Ramamoorthy Ramesh
AB - Topological walls separating domains of continuous polarization, magnetization, and strain in ferroic materials hold promise of novel electronic properties, that are intrinsically localized on the nanoscale and that can be patterned on demand without change of material volume or elemental composition. We have revealed that ferroelectric domain walls in multiferroic BiFeO 3 are inherently dynamic electronic conductors, closely mimicking memristive behavior and contrary to the usual assumption of rigid conductivity. Applied electric field can cause a localized transition between insulating and conducting domain walls, tune domain wall conductance by over an order of magnitude, and create a quasicontinuous spectrum of metastable conductance states. Our measurements identified that subtle and microscopically reversible distortion of the polarization structure at the domain wall is at the origin of the dynamic conductivity. The latter is therefore likely to be a universal property of topological defects in ferroelectric semiconductors. © 2011 American Chemical Society.
BT - Nano Letters
DO - 10.1021/nl104363x
LA - eng
M1 - 5
N1 - cited By 161
N2 - Topological walls separating domains of continuous polarization, magnetization, and strain in ferroic materials hold promise of novel electronic properties, that are intrinsically localized on the nanoscale and that can be patterned on demand without change of material volume or elemental composition. We have revealed that ferroelectric domain walls in multiferroic BiFeO 3 are inherently dynamic electronic conductors, closely mimicking memristive behavior and contrary to the usual assumption of rigid conductivity. Applied electric field can cause a localized transition between insulating and conducting domain walls, tune domain wall conductance by over an order of magnitude, and create a quasicontinuous spectrum of metastable conductance states. Our measurements identified that subtle and microscopically reversible distortion of the polarization structure at the domain wall is at the origin of the dynamic conductivity. The latter is therefore likely to be a universal property of topological defects in ferroelectric semiconductors. © 2011 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2011
SP - 1906
EP - 1912
T2 - Nano Letters
TI - Dynamic conductivity of ferroelectric domain walls in BiFeO3
VL - 11
SN - 15306984
ER -