Ferroelectric Switching in Hybrid Molecular-Beam-Epitaxy-Grown BaTiO<sub>3</sub> Films
Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) is a promising synthesis technique for both heterostructure growth and epitaxial integration of ferroelectric BaTiO<sub>3</sub>. However, direct measurement of the remnant polarization (<i>P</i><sub>r</sub>) has not been previously reported in MBE-grown BaTiO<sub>3</sub> films. We report the <i>in situ</i> growth of an all-epitaxial SrRuO<sub>3</sub>/BaTiO<sub>3</sub>/SrRuO<sub>3</sub> heterostructure on Nb-doped SrTiO<sub>3</sub> (001) substrates by hybrid MBE using metal-organic precursors. This capacitor structure consisting of 16 nm SrRuO<sub>3</sub>/40 nm BaTiO<sub>3</sub>/16 nm SrRuO<sub>3</sub> shows hysteretic polarization-electric field (<i>P</i>-<i>E</i>) curves with <i>P</i><sub>r</sub> ∼ 15 μC cm<sup>-2</sup> at frequencies ranging from 500 Hz to 20 kHz, after isolating the intrinsic ferroelectric response from non-ferroelectric contributions using the Positive-Up-Negative-Down (PUND) method. We hypothesize that the asymmetry in switching behavior and current leakage has origins in structural defects. This work opens the door to defect-engineered ferroelectric BaTiO<sub>3</sub>-based heterostructures grown by hybrid MBE for future electronic, photonic and spintronic applications.
Authors
- Chin-Hsiang Liao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8422-5180)
- Anusha Kamath Manjeshwar (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6396-5860)
- Jiaxuan Wen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3188-637X)
- Zhifei Yang
- Bharat Jalan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7940-0490)
- Steven J. Koester (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6104-1218)
- Richard D. James
Institutions
- University of Minnesota (US)
- University of Minnesota System (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nano Letters
- Published
- 2025-09-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.5c02650
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Ferroelectric and Piezoelectric Materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.52