Crystal structures and electrical properties of epitaxial BiFeO3 thin films with (001), (110), and (111) orientations

Keita Sone, Hiroshi Naganuma, Takamichi Miyazaki, Takashi Nakajima, Soichiro Okamura

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

44 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

BiFeO3 (BFO) films were formed on (001), (110), and (111) La-doped SrTiO3 single-crystal substrates. All the films were epitaxially grown and had mainly rhombohedral structure. The BFO film formed on the (001) substrate had only a (001) component whereas the BFO films on (110) and (111) substrates had (1̄10) and (1̄11) components, respectively. The (001), (110), and (111) epitaxial BFO films showed the remanent polarizations of 63, 84, and 106 μC/cm2, respectively. It seems that the (1̄10) and (1̄11) components were changed to (110) and (111) ones, respectively, by applying an external voltage. The (001) epitaxial BFO film showed marked asymmetry in its electrical properties. It was found that the (001) epitaxial BFO film had a thin tetragonal layer with spontaneous polarization fixed in the downward direction near the substrate. Finally, we concluded that this tetragonal layer caused the accumulation of space charges at the interface, causing a downward built-in field to be generated. The downward build-in field facilitated the switching of upward polarization and caused asymmetric relaxation.

Original languageEnglish
Article number09MB03
JournalJapanese Journal of Applied Physics
Volume49
Issue number9 PART 2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010 Sept

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