Berlin 2015 – scientific programme

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KR: Fachgruppe Kristallographie

KR 1: Symposium on Ferroic Domain walls (SYDW)

KR 1.2: Invited Talk

Monday, March 16, 2015, 10:00–10:30, H 0105

Domain walls and oxygen vacancies - towards reversible control of domain wall conductance — •Patrycja Paruch — Department of Quantum Matter Physics, University of Geneva, Switzerland

In ferroelectric materials, domain walls separate regions with different polarisation orientation, and can present novel functional properties quite different from those of the parent phase. The extreme localisation of such properties at these intrinsically nanoscale features makes them potentially useful as active components in future miniaturized electronic devices.

Particularly exciting has been the discovery of domain-wall-specific electrical conductivity, shown first in multiferroic BiFeO₃. I will present our observation of conductance at 180^∘ domain walls in the simpler ferroelectric Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃, using a range of scanned probe microscopy techniques at different time scales.

Our measurements highlight the key role of surface adsorbates and oxygen vacancies, and show how their density and distribution can be modulated to reversibly control domain wall transport. Exploring the conductance of the domain walls under both direct and alternating current regimes, we also address the question of maximum packing density of individual current channels in epitaxial ferroelectric thin films.