Mechanism for switchability in electron-doped ferroelectric interfaces

Abstract

With the recent experimental verification that ferroelectric lattice distortions survive in the metallic phase of some materials, there is a desire to create devices that are both switchable and take advantage of the novel functionalities afforded by polar interfaces. In this work, we explore a simple model for such an interface and demonstrate a mechanism by which a metallic ferroelectric substrate may be switched by a bias voltage. This finding is in contrast to the reasonable expectation that hysteresis is prevented by screening of external fields in ferroelectric metals. Instead, the electron gas binds to polarization gradients to form a compensated state. Uncompensated electrons, which may screen external fields, are generated either when the electron density exceeds the ferroelectric polarization or when the bias voltage exceeds a "spillover" threshold. We propose that switchable thin films may be optimized by choosing an electron density that is slightly less than the lattice polarization. In addition to the high-polarization states, we find that thin metallic films also have a low-polarization state with average polarization near zero. Unlike in insulating films, where the polarization is small everywhere in this state, the low-polarization state in the metallic films consists of two head-to-head domains of opposite polarization. This domain formation is enabled by the screening of depolarizing fields by the electron gas.