Influence of semiconducting electrodes on properties of thin ferroelectric films

The influence of semiconducting electrodes on the properties of thin ferroelectric films is considered within the framework of the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory. The contribution of the electric field produced by charges in the electrodes allowing for the screening length of the carriers is included in the functional of the free energy and so in the Euler-Lagrange equation for the film's polarization. Application of the variational method to the solution of this equation allows the transformation of the free energy functional into a conventional type of free energy with renormalized coefficients. The obtained dependence of the coefficients on the film thickness, temperature, elect…

Synthesis of Nanoferroics

The Chapter covers the technological aspects of many chemical and physico-chemical nanofabrication methods relevant to making nanoferroic materials and composites. First, the classification of relevant synthesis methods of nanoferroics has been presented. Synthesis of particular nanoferroics with different chemical bonding like metallic, oxide and non-oxide compounds is considered in details. Among the methods, the mechanochemical, sonochemical, hydrothermal, co-precipitation, emulsion, thermal decomposition of unstable precursors have been analyzed. The competition between new phase nucleation and nuclei growth has been revealed to be controlled using feedback between reaction rate and tem…

EPR Study of Manganese-Doped PLZT-8/65/35 Ceramics

Magnetoelectric effect in mixed valency oxides mediated by charge carriers

We show that the presence of free carriers in a substance can generate the multiferroic behavior. Namely, if the substance has mixed-valence ions, which can supply free carriers and have electric dipole and spin moments, all three types of long-range order (ferromagnetic, ferroelectric and magnetoelectric (ME)) can occur at low temperature. The physical origin of the effect is that charge carriers can mediate the multiferroic behavior via spin - spin (RKKY), dipole-dipole and dipole - spin interactions. Our estimate of the interaction magnitude shows that there exist an optimal carrier concentration, at which the strength of ME interaction is maximal and comparable to that of spin-spin RKKY…

Properties of Thin Ferroelectric Film with Different Electrodes

The influence of different metallic and semiconducting electrodes on the properties of thin ferroelectric films is considered within the framework of the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory. Allowing for the effect of charge screening in metals and semiconductors, the contribution of electric field produced by charges in the electrodes is included into the functional of free energy and, hence, to the Euler-Lagrange equation for film polarization. Application of variational method to this equation solution permitted the transformation of the free energy functional into a conventional type free energy with a renormalized coefficient before P 2 , the coefficient being dependent on the both…

The Peculiar Physical Properties of Nanosized Ferroics (Nanoferroics)

This Chapter contains the experimental facts about size effects in nanoferroics. They include ferroelectric, ferroelastic, magnetic and multiferroic nanostructured materials. The main peculiar feature of nanoferroics is the geometric confinement originating from their surfaces and interfaces. This is in contrast to the ordinary bulk ferroics, where the sample surface plays a minor role. In particular, in nanoferroics, the surface generates the physical properties gradients in the normal (to the surface) direction. This fact yields strong size effects and spatial inhomogeneity of the nanoferroics properties, which should be taken into account to get their adequate physical description. We re…

True Nanoferroics with the Properties Absent in Corresponding Bulk Samples

The Chapter covers the theoretical and experimental approaches to the investigations of the physical properties, which are inherent in ferroics of nanosize and absent in corresponding bulk materials. Namely, the strong surface influence along with other effects of geometrical confinement generates number of physical effects, which do not occur in bulk ferroics samples. One example of such phenomena is room-temperature ferromagnetism in nanoparticles and thin films of undoped CeO2, HfO2, SnO2, Al2O3 and other nonmagnetic (in bulk samples) oxides. Theo other striking example is appearance of so-called spontaneous flexoeffects (i.e. flexoelectric, flexomagnetic, flexoelastic) in ferroic nanosa…

The depolarization field effect on the thin ferroelectric films properties

Abstract The calculation of the spontaneous polarization (Ps), dielectric susceptibility (χ) and pyroelectric coefficient (Π) of the ferroelectric films has been performed in the phenomenological theory framework. Euler–Lagrange equation was solved analytically under the boundary conditions with different extrapolation lengths at two surfaces, respectively. The depolarization field contribution was taken into account in the model of short-circuited mono domain ferroelectric film, treated as perfect insulator. The detailed analysis of the aforementioned quantities’ space distribution and their average values in two cases with and without depolarization field was carried out. It was shown tha…

Depolarization Field and Properties of Thin Ferroelectric Films with Inclusion of the Electrode Effect

The influence of metallic electrodes on the properties of thin ferroelectric films is considered in the framework of the Ginzburg-Landau phenomenological theory. The contribution of the electrodes with different screening lengths l s of carriers in the electrode material is included in the free-energy functional. The critical temperature T cl , the critical thickness of the film, and the critical screening length of the electrode at which the ferroelectric phase transforms into the paraelectric phase are calculated. The Euler-Lagrange equation for the polarization P is solved by the direct variational method. The results demonstrate that the film properties can be calculated by minimizing t…

Theoretical Description of Primary Nanoferroics. Comparison of the Theory with Experiment

This Chapter is devoted primarily to the theoretical description of the physical properties of nanoferroics. The theoretical approach that has been successful in describing the size- and shape-dependent effects observed experimentally in nanoferroics is Landau – Ginzburg – Devonshire phenomenological theory, operating on nanoferroics symmetry and order parameters. Our analysis of this theory applicability shows that it can be safely applied down to the sample sizes of few nanometers. The main peculiarity of theoretical description of nanoferroics is that the boundary conditions and terms containing gradients of order parameters cannot be omitted and play the vital role in the description of…

Exact and Variational Treatment of Ferroelectric Thin Films with Different Materials of Electrodes

We trace the influence of metallic electrodes on the properties of thin ferroelectric films. This has been done in the framework of the phenomenological Landau theory. We present both exact analytical solution of the problem in terms of Weierstrass elliptic functions and the variational solution. We calculate polarization, dielectric susceptibility, pyroelectric coefficient and depolarization field. We have shown that the ferroelectric phase of the film can be destroyed by the choice of material of electrodes with screening length exceeding some critical value. This demonstrates that we can control the physical properties of thin ferroelectric films by the proper choice of the electrode mat…

Size effects of static and dynamic polarization in ferroelectric thin film multilayers

Abstract A thermodynamic theory for the calculation of static and dynamic polarization profiles of ferroelectric thin film multilayers is developed. The free energy functional is written down using a multilayer model in which c-domain layers of the ferroelectric material alternate with a-domain layers of a second ferroelectric materials. We assume that the interfaces are perfectly sharp and that the polarization at these boundaries is zero. The equilibrium polarization profile, its temperature and thickness dependencies were determined from the solutions of the Euler-Lagrange equations. A thickness induced ferroelectric phase transition is shown to exist and its transition temperature and c…

Free Charge Carriers in Mixed Valency Oxides as Possible Mediators of Magnetoelectric Effect

We show, that in a substance with mixed-valence ions, which can supply free carriers and have electric dipole and spin moments, three types of long-range order (ferromagnetic, ferroelectric and magnetoelectric (ME)) can occur at low temperatures. The origin of the effect is that free charge carriers can mediate the multiferroic behavior via spin – spin (RKKY), dipole-dipole and dipole - spin interactions. We show that there is an optimal carrier concentration, at which the strength of ME interaction is maximal and comparable to that of RKKY interaction. Our analysis shows that disorder and finite conductivity in the above substances does not suppress multiferroic effects.

Depolarization Field in Thin Ferroelectric Films With Account of Semiconductor Electrodes

Within the framework of the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory influence of semiconductor electrodes on the properties of thin ferroelectric films is considered. The contribution of the semiconductor electrodes with different Debye screening length of carriers is included in the functional of free energy. The influence of highly doped semiconductor electrodes on the depolarization field and the film properties was shown to be great.

Enhanced ferroelectric phase-transition temperature in perovskite-based solid solutions

We explain how the phenomena of ferroelectric phase transition temperature ${T}_{c}$ enhancement beyond the end members in perovskite solid solution such as $\mathrm{Bi}M{\mathrm{O}}_{3}\text{\ensuremath{-}}{\mathrm{PbTiO}}_{3}$ ($M=\mathrm{Sc}$, In, etc.) is related to nonlinear and spatial correlation effects. The explanation is based on the calculation of ${T}_{c}$ in the framework of our random field theory with additional account for nonlinear effects in the above substances. We show that the maximum of ${T}_{c}$ for certain ${\mathrm{PbTiO}}_{3}$ content takes place when coefficient of nonlinearity is positive, the value of this coefficient is found from best fit between theory and ex…