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arXiv · 1702.01515

Interface control of ferroelectricity in a SrRuO3/BaTiO3/SrRuO3 capacitor and its critical thickness

Yeong Jae Shin·Yoonkoo Kim·Sung-Jin Kang·Ho-Hyun Nahm·Pattukkannu Murugavel·Jeong Rae Kim·Myung Rae Cho·Lingfei Wang·Sang Mo Yang·Jong-Gul Yoon·Jin-Seok Chung·Miyoung Kim·Hua Zhou·Seo Hyoung Chang·Tae Won Noh
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Abstract

The atomic-scale synthesis of artificial oxide heterostructures offers new opportunities to create novel states that do not occur in nature. The main challenge related to synthesizing these structures is obtaining atomically sharp interfaces with designed termination sequences. Here, we demonstrate that the oxygen pressure (PO2) during growth plays an important role in controlling the interfacial terminations of SrRuO3/BaTiO3/SrRuO3 (SRO/BTO/SRO) ferroelectric capacitors. The SRO/BTO/SRO heterostructures were grown by the pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. The top SRO/BTO interface grown at high PO2 (around 150 mTorr) usually exhibited a mixture of RuO2-BaO and SrO-TiO2 terminations. By reducing PO2, we obtained atomically sharp SRO/BTO top interfaces with uniform SrO-TiO2 termination. Using capacitor devices with symmetric and uniform interfacial termination, we were able to demonstrate for the first time that the ferroelectric (FE) critical thickness can reach the theoretical limit of 3.5 unit cells (u.c.).

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Yeong Jae Shin, Yoonkoo Kim, Sung-Jin Kang, Ho-Hyun Nahm, Pattukkannu Murugavel, Jeong Rae Kim, Myung Rae Cho, Lingfei Wang, Sang Mo Yang, Jong-Gul Yoon, Jin-Seok Chung, Miyoung Kim, Hua Zhou, Seo Hyoung Chang, Tae Won Noh. 2017-02-06. Interface control of ferroelectricity in a SrRuO3/BaTiO3/SrRuO3 capacitor and its critical thickness. https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.01515

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