Kinetics of Domain Switching by Mechanical and Electrical Stimulation in Relaxor-Based Ferroelectrics

Abstract

With their domain switching under electrical loading or mechanical stress, ferroelectric materials have been studied for applications in high-density nonvolatile memory. However, backswitching in such systems could cause significant data loss. In this work, experiments and stimulations are used to investigate the unique ferroelastic domain-switching kinetics of single-crystalline pillars of relaxor material. The electromechanical hysteresis loop shifts due to constraint of the pillars, resulting in various mechanically reversible $o\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r$ $i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}v\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}r\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}s\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}i\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}b\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}l\phantom{\rule{0}{0ex}}e$ states. This behavior could be exploited to overcome the backswitching problem in advanced bit writing and reading.