Article abstract
Nature Materials 8, 229 - 234 (2009)
Published online: 25 January 2009 | doi:10.1038/nmat2373
Subject Categories: Electronic materials | Magnetic materials
Conduction at domain walls in oxide multiferroics
J. Seidel1,2,10, L. W. Martin2,3,10, Q. He1, Q. Zhan2, Y.-H. Chu2,3,4, A. Rother5, M. E. Hawkridge2, P. Maksymovych6, P. Yu1, M. Gajek1, N. Balke1, S. V. Kalinin6, S. Gemming7, F. Wang1, G. Catalan8, J. F. Scott8, N. A. Spaldin9, J. Orenstein1,2 & R. Ramesh1,2,3
Abstract
Domain walls may play an important role in future electronic devices, given their small size as well as the fact that their location can be controlled. Here, we report the observation of room-temperature electronic conductivity at ferroelectric domain walls in the insulating multiferroic BiFeO3. The origin and nature of the observed conductivity are probed using a combination of conductive atomic force microscopy, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and first-principles density functional computations. Our analyses indicate that the conductivity correlates with structurally driven changes in both the electrostatic potential and the local electronic structure, which shows a decrease in the bandgap at the domain wall. Additionally, we demonstrate the potential for device applications of such conducting nanoscale features.
- Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, 94720 California, USA
- Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 94720 California, USA
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, 94720 California, USA
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, HsinChu, 30010, Taiwan
- Institute of Structure Physics, Triebenberg Laboratory, Technische Universität Dresden, DE-01062, Germany
- Center for Nanophase Materials Science, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 37831 Tennessee, USA
- Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, 01314 Dresden, Germany
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3EQ, UK
- Materials Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106 California, USA
- These authors contributed equally to this work
Correspondence to: J. Seidel1,2,10 e-mail: jseidel@berkeley.edu
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