Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 11 June 2004:
Vol. 304. no. 5677, pp. 1650 - 1653
DOI: 10.1126/science.1098252
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Ferroelectricity in Ultrathin Perovskite Films

Dillon D. Fong,1 G. Brian Stephenson,1* Stephen K. Streiffer,1 Jeffrey A. Eastman,1 Orlando Auciello,1 Paul H. Fuoss,1 Carol Thompson2

Understanding the suppression of ferroelectricity in perovskite thin films is a fundamental issue that has remained unresolved for decades. We report a synchrotron x-ray study of lead titanate as a function of temperature and film thickness for films as thin as a single unit cell. At room temperature, the ferroelectric phase is stable for thicknesses down to 3 unit cells (1.2 nanometers). Our results imply that no thickness limit is imposed on practical devices by an intrinsic ferroelectric size effect.

1 Materials Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.
2 Department of Physics, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: stephenson{at}anl.gov

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Probing nanoscale ferroelectricity by ultraviolet Raman spectroscopy..
D. A. Tenne, A. Bruchhausen, N. D. Lanzillotti-Kimura, A. Fainstein, R. S. Katiyar, A. Cantarero, A. Soukiassian, V. Vaithyanathan, J. H. Haeni, W. Tian, et al. (2006)
Science 313, 1614-1616
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Enhancement of Ferroelectricity in Strained BaTiO3 Thin Films.
K. J. Choi, M. Biegalski, Y. L. Li, A. Sharan, J. Schubert, R. Uecker, P. Reiche, Y. B. Chen, X. Q. Pan, V. Gopalan, et al. (2004)
Science 306, 1005-1009
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)