%0 Journal Article
%K Film
%K Substrate
%K Electric field
%K Frequency analysis
%K Instrumentation
%K Thin section
%A Z.Q Liu
%A J.H Liu
%A M.D Biegalski
%A J.-M Hu
%A S.L Shang
%A Y Ji
%A J.M Wang
%A S.L Hsu
%A A.T Wong
%A M.J Cordill
%A B Gludovatz
%A C Marker
%A H Yan
%A Z.X Feng
%A L You
%A M.W Lin
%A T.Z Ward
%A Z.K Liu
%A C.B Jiang
%A L.Q Chen
%A R.O Ritchie
%A H.M Christen
%A Ramamoorthy Ramesh
%B Nature Communications
%D 2018
%G eng
%I Nature Publishing Group
%R 10.1038/s41467-017-02454-8
%T Electrically reversible cracks in an intermetallic film controlled by an electric field
%V 9
%X Cracks in solid-state materials are typically irreversible. Here we report electrically reversible opening and closing of nanoscale cracks in an intermetallic thin film grown on a ferroelectric substrate driven by a small electric field ( 0.83 kV/cm). Accordingly, a nonvolatile colossal electroresistance on-off ratio of more than 108 is measured across the cracks in the intermetallic film at room temperature. Cracks are easily formed with low-frequency voltage cycling and remain stable when the device is operated at high frequency, which offers intriguing potential for next-generation high-frequency memory applications. Moreover, endurance testing demonstrates that the opening and closing of such cracks can reach over 107 cycles under 10-μs pulses, without catastrophic failure of the film. © 2017 The Author(s).