An Original Positive-Up-Negative-Down Protocol for Electrical Characterization of Antiferroelectric Materials
This work introduces the AFE-PUND measurement method, an original positive up negative down (PUND) protocol intended to accurately study antiferroelectric (AFE) thin-film behavior. As for its FE counterpart, the AFE-PUND method isolates switching currents from nonswitching contributions, enabling a precise extraction of saturation polarization and coercive fields from hysteresis loop curves. In this paper, AFE-PUND was deployed on AFE ZrO<sub>2</sub> films of varying thicknesses. The results reveal that saturation polarization increases with film thickness, indicating enhanced domain stability, while endurance cycles showcase the wake-up effect and its eventual fatigue-induced degradation in thicker films. Similarly, coercive fields decrease with thickness, reflecting reduced switching barriers and a sharper transition between the tetragonal and orthorhombic phases. AFE-PUND establishes itself as an extremely valuable method for advancing the understanding and optimization of AFE materials.
Authors
- M. Le Berre (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4935-7951)
- Grégoire Magagnin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-5527-8084)
- Damien Deleruyelle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2394-1359)
- Brice Gautier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0705-9967)
- Jordan Bouaziz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0975-5066)
- Sara Gonzalez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7698-3539)
- Bertrand Vilquin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7404-0019)
Institutions
- Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 (FR)
- École Centrale de Lyon (FR)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Institut des Nanotechnologies de Lyon (FR)
- Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Lyon (FR)
- École d'Ingénieurs en Chimie et Sciences du Numérique (FR)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-04-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c00851
- Citations
- 3
- Primary Topic
- Ferroelectric and Negative Capacitance Devices
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.19
Funders
- European Commission
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche
- Unitatea Executiva pentru Finantarea Invatamantului Superior, a Cercetarii, Dezvoltarii si Inovarii
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
- H2020 LEIT Advanced Materials