Importance of damping on nanoswitching in LiNbO3-type ferroelectrics

Abstract

In a previous dynamic study of some ferroelectric materials showing memory switching behavior, a Hamiltonian was developed that gave rise to a nonlinear Duffing oscillator equation involving the Landau–Ginzburg free energy functional as a potential formulation (Bandyopadhyay et al 2006 J. Appl. Phys. 100 114106). A high level of oscillations was observed in polarization waves against non-dimensional time that was quenched by increasing damping, which is a decay constant related to the loss of polarization due to damping during its motion in a ferroelectric material, such as lithium niobate. From the computer simulation of the damped oscillation curves, a critical time for switching, say, in a nanoswitch, was found that varies with the damping coefficient. This damping was also found to show an increasing behavior with the coercive field or the amount of impurities in a quadratic manner in such ferroelectrics.