Mechanical manipulation of ferroelectricity for low-energy technology

Dr Peggy Schoenherr, Research Fellow, UNSW

Ferroelectric materials have been used in a wide range of electromechanical, optical, and electronic applications due to their ability to switch polarised domains. Compared to the more conventional electrical and optical manipulation of ferroelectric domains, mechanical switching is a less explored phenomenon. With low enough pressures alternative low-energy switching concept could be anticipated leading to new opportunities for next-generation domain engineering and low-energy applications.
Here, we investigate the thickness-dependent mechanical and electrical switching behaviour of ferroelectric domains in PbZr_0.48Ti_0.52O₃ thin films on YBa₂Cu₃O₇-δ. By using the pressure of an atomic-force-microscope cantilever, we found that the films switch at pressures down to roughly 0.2 GPa. Interestingly, the mechanical poling is found to work analogous to an applied positive bias. The depicted switching pressure is also significantly lower than previously reported tip pressures paving a way for new nanoscale electromechanical devices.

About the presenter

Peggy Schoenherr is an experimentalist physicist with Prof Jan Seidel (UNSW), where she studies materials’ magnetic, electric and mechanical properties at the nanoscale using room-temperature and low-temperature atomic force microscopy.  The materials investigated span a wide range from superconductors to skyrmion systems to ferroic materials, with all of them potentially exhibiting the topological structures (domain walls, vortices, skyrmions) which FLEET is investigating. This falls within the Centre’s Research theme 1 topological materials and Enabling technology B nanodevice fabrication.