Ferroelectric domain wall motion in epitaxial PbTiO3 and BiFeO3 thin films

Abstract

We investigated ferroelectric domain switching dynamics of epitaxially grown PbTiO3 and BiFeO3 thin films. The epitaxial PbTiO3 and BiFeO3 thin films exhibited high ferroelectric remnant polarizations of approximately 94 and 50 μC/cm2, respectively. To comparatively evaluate the switching speeds of the two thin films, we measured switching currents as a function of time. The BiFeO 3 thin film showed slower switching behavior than the PbTiO 3 thin film. It is found that the slow domain wall motion of the BiFeO3 thin film is ascribed to having relatively higher activation energy, as compared to that of the PbTiO3 thin film. © 2014 Elsevier B.V.