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Charge and field coupling phenomena at metal-oxide interfaces and their applications
Abstract
Heterostructures composed of polar materials, such as ferroelectric and/or piezoelectric, are interesting due to their interface lattice charge coupling (LCC) effects. In this thesis, coupling effects between switchable ferroelectric and non-switchable piezoelectric semiconductor spontaneous polarizations are addressed. Also discussed is a dielectric continuum model approach for studying LCC effects in double layer piezoelectric semiconductor-ferroelectric and triple layer piezoelectric semiconductor-ferroelectric-piezoelectric semiconductor heterostructures. The dielectric continuum model augments the effects of electric field driven switchable polarization due to LCC with depletion layer formation in semiconductor heterostructures. Electrical investigations were used to study a reference single layer (BaTiO3), a double layer (BaTiO3-ZnO), and a triple layer (ZnO-BaTiO 3-ZnO) heterostructure grown by pulsed laser deposition. The coupling between the non-switchable spontaneous polarization of ZnO and the electrically switchable spontaneous polarization of BaTiO3 causes strong asymmetric polarization hysteresis behavior. The n-type ZnO layer within double and triple layered heterostructures reveals hysteresis-dependent capacitance variations upon formation of depletion layers at the ZnO/BaTiO 3 interfaces. Model analysis show very good agreement between the generated data and the experimental results. The dielectric continuum model approach allows for the derivation of the amount and orientation of the spontaneous polarization of the piezoelectric constituents, and can be generalized towards multiple layer piezoelectric semiconductor-ferroelectric heterostructures. Based on experimental results the polarization coupled ZnO-BaTiO 3-ZnO heterostructures is identified as a two-terminal unipolar ferroelectric bi-junction transistor which can be utilized in memory storage devices. Furthermore it is discussed, that the triple layer heterostructure with magnetically controlled piezoelectric polarization in the ZnO layer can be utilized for non-binary storage device applications.
Subject Area
Inorganic chemistry|Electrical engineering|Materials science
Recommended Citation
Voora, Venkata M, "Charge and field coupling phenomena at metal-oxide interfaces and their applications" (2011). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI3466591.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI3466591