Domain wall roughness and creep in nanoscale crystalline ferroelectric polymers

Authors

Zhengguo Xiao, University of Nebraska–LincolnFollow
Shashi Poddar, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Stephen Ducharme, University of NebraskaFollow
X. Hong, University of Nebraska–LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

2013

Citation

APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 103, 112903 (2013); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4820784

Comments

Copyright 2013 AIP Publishing LLC

Abstract

We report piezo-response force microscopy studies of the static and dynamic properties of domain walls (DWs) in 11 to 36 nm thick films of crystalline ferroelectric poly(vinylidene-fluoride-trifluorethylene). The DW roughness exponent ζ ranges from 0.39 to 0.48 and the DW creep exponent µ varies from 0.20 to 0.28, revealing an unexpected effective dimensionality of ~1.5 that is independent of film thickness. Our results suggest predominantly 2D ferroelectricity in the layered polymer and we attribute the fractal dimensionality to DW deroughening due to the correlations between the in-plane and out-of-plane polarization, an effect that can be exploited to achieve high lateral domain density for developing nanoscale ferroelectrics-based applications.