cfaed Seminar Series

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cfaed Seminar Series

Prof. Nava Setter , Ceramics Laboratory, EPFL - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland

Ferroelectric domain-walls as mobile functional interfaces

06.05.2015 (Wednesday) , 15:30 - 17:00
TU Dresden, Werner Hartmann Building, room WHB 205-206 , Nöthnitzer Str. 66 , 01187 Dresden

portrait Prof. Nava Setter

Ferroelectrics are materials that possess spontaneous electrical polarization, which is stable in more than one orientation and can be reoriented (switched) by applied voltage. Ferroelectrics are widely used in diverse applications such as non-volatile memories and ultrasonic medical imaging, and are of interest in emerging fields such as oxide-electronics, reconfigurable high-frequency electronics is drawing substantial interest.

Nava Setter is the director of the Ceramics Laboratory at EPFL.

Domain-walls are interfaces, 1-5 nm thick, that separate regions, domains, inside the ferroelectric in which the spontaneous polarization is differently oriented. Research worldwide, e.g. (1), revealed that domain wall properties can differ from those of the domains themselves, leading to new, potentially exploitable phenomena. This is attractive, particularly in light of the possibility to create, displace, annihilate, and recreate domain walls by applied voltage.
We are studying how to control domain wall patterns and are exploring their properties. Among the obtained results are dense patterns of arrays of domains having <10 nm width (2), controlled movements of domain walls (3), domain walls with quasi-2DG metallic conductivity inside the insulating matrix (4, 5), and their controlled density (6) and demonstrated reconfigurability (7). In addition we have evidenced ferroelectric boundaries in non-ferroelectric materials (8) and also showed the possibility of elastic interaction between non-ferroelastic domain walls (9), promising new dimensions in domain-wall control.

  1. J. Seidel et al., Nat. Mater. 8, 229 (2009)
  2. L. Feigl et al., Nat. Commun. 5, 4677(2014)
  3. L. McGilly et al., Nat. Nanotech. 10, 145 (2015)
  4. T. Sluka et al., Nat. Commun. 4, 2389 (2013)
  5. I. Stolichnov et al. (submitted)
  6. P. Bednyakov et al. (submitted)
  7. A. Crassous et al. Nat. Nanotech (2015)
  8. X.-K. Wei et al., Nat. Commun 5, 3031 (2014)
  9. K. Shapovalov et al. PRL113, 207601 (2014).

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