Conductivity contrast and tunneling charge transport in the vortex-like ferroelectric domain patterns of multiferroic hexagonal YMnO3

TL;DR

This study reveals the high conductivity contrast and tunneling charge transport mechanisms in ferroelectric domain walls of multiferroic YMnO3, highlighting their potential for microelectronic applications.

Contribution

It introduces an equivalent-circuit analysis of dielectric spectra to determine intrinsic conductivity properties of ferroelectric domain walls in YMnO3.

Findings

Conductivity contrast up to 500 between domains and walls.

Tunneling of defect charge carriers dominates charge transport.

Dielectric spectroscopy effectively probes domain wall charge transport.

Abstract

We deduce the intrinsic conductivity properties of the ferroelectric domain walls around the topologically protected domain vortex cores in multiferroic YMnO3. This is achieved by performing a careful equivalent-circuit analysis of dielectric spectra measured in single-crystalline samples with different vortex densities. The conductivity contrast between the bulk domains and the less conducting domain boundaries is revealed to reach up to a factor 500 at room temperature, depending on sample preparation. Tunneling of localized defect charge carriers is the dominant charge-transport process in the domain walls that are depleted of mo-bile charge carriers. This work demonstrates that via equivalent-circuit analysis, dielectric spectroscopy can provide valuable information on the intrinsic charge-transport properties of ferroelectric domain walls, which is of high relevance for the design of new domain-wall-based microelectronic devices.