Critical field anisotropy in the antiferroelectric switching of PbZrO3 films

TL;DR

This study investigates the anisotropic switching behavior of PbZrO3 antiferroelectric films, revealing how electric field direction and film texture influence the critical switching field and phase transition characteristics.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the directional dependence of antiferroelectric switching in PbZrO3 thin films and emphasizes the role of crystallite orientation and film texture.

Findings

Critical switching field varies with electric field direction.

Switching behavior aligns with a phase transition to a rhombohedral polar phase.

Crystallite orientation significantly affects switching properties.

Abstract

Antiferroelectrics have been recently sparking interest due to their potential use in energy storage and electrocaloric cooling. Their main distinctive feature is antiferroelectric switching, i.e. the possibility to induce a phase transition to a polar phase by an electric field. Here we investigate the switching behavior of the model antiferroelectric perovskite PbZrO3 using thin films processed by chemical solution deposition in different geometries and orientations. Both out-of-plane and in-plane switching configurations are investigated. The critical field is observed to be highly dependent on the direction of the electric field with respect to the film texture. We show that this behaviour is qualitatively consistent with a phase transition to a rhombohedral polar phase. We finally estimate the importance of crystallite orientation and film texturation in the variations observed in the literature.