Dresden 2020 – scientific programme

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KFM: Fachverband Kristalline Festkörper und deren Mikrostruktur

KFM 15: Postersession KFM

KFM 15.16: Poster

Thursday, March 19, 2020, 16:00–18:30, P2/1OG

Mapping of Conductivity at Ferroelectric Domain Walls using Alternating Voltages — •Jan Schultheiß¹, Erik Lysne¹, Jakob Schaab², Edith Bourret³, Zewu Yan^3,2, Stephan Krohns⁴, Donald M. Evans¹, and Dennis Meier¹ — ¹Department of Materials Science and Engineering, NTNU Trondheim, Norway — ²Department of Materials, ETH Zurich, Switzerland — ³Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA — ⁴Experimental Physics V, University of Augsburg, Germany

Ferroelectric domain walls (DWs) are natural interfaces that separate domains with different orientation of the electric polarization. Using conductive atomic force microscopy (cAFM), it was found that DWs can exhibit completely different electronic conduction properties than the bulk domains. The characterization of the intrinsic transport behavior, however, remains a challenging task as conventional cAFM is inherently susceptible to contributions from contact resistance.
Here, we study the electrical conduction at ferroelectric domain walls under alternating voltages (a.c.) in the frequency range 0.2-20 MHz. We compare spatially resolved current maps with standard d.c. cAFM and highlight differences for different types of DWs in a hexagonal manganate (ErMnO₃). We find that domain- and DW-related conduction contrasts drop at distinctly different frequencies, correlating with the polarization configuration at the DWs. Quantification of the characteristic frequencies provides new insight into the intrinsic transport mechanism at functional DWs.