Athermal domain-wall creep near a ferroelectric quantum critical point.

ABSTRACT: Ferroelectric domain walls are typically stationary because of the presence of a pinning potential. Nevertheless, thermally activated, irreversible creep motion can occur under a moderate electric field, thereby underlying rewritable and non-volatile memory applications. Conversely, as the temperature decreases, the occurrence of creep motion becomes less likely and eventually impossible under realistic electric-field magnitudes. Here we show that such frozen ferroelectric domain walls recover their mobility under the influence of quantum fluctuations. Nonlinear permittivity and polarization-retention measurements of an organic charge-transfer complex reveal that ferroelectric domain-wall creep occurs via an athermal process when the system is tuned close to a pressure-driven ferroelectric

SUBMITTER: Kagawa F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4757756 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature