Pyroelectric study of polarization switching in Langmuir-Blodgett films of poly(vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene)

Authors

• A.V. Sorokin, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
• V.M. Fridkin, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
• Stephen Ducharme, University of NebraskaFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

August 2005

Comments

Published by American Institute of Physics. Applied Physics 98, 044107.1-10 (2005). Permission to use. Journal home page = http://jap.aip.org/jap/.

Abstract

The ferroelectric switching in Langmuir-Blodgett films of poly (vinylidene fluoride trifluoroethylene) is studied. The films have a distribution of switching times several decades wide. Nearly a half of the film volume may be switched faster than 1 ms, though complete switching of a whole sample may require 100 s or more. The switching occurs through a domain nucleation and growth mechanism. The decay of polarization at zero bias is logarithmic in time, with a constant rate below 5% per decade at room temperatures. The coercive voltage may be as low as 5 V, which makes the films promising for use in nonvolatile random-access data storage.