A Landau-Devonshire Analysis of Strain Effects on Ferroelectric Al1-xScxN

TL;DR

This paper uses a Landau-Devonshire thermodynamic model to analyze how strain affects ferroelectric properties of Al1-xScxN, revealing its strain sensitivities and explaining experimental coercive field behavior.

Contribution

It introduces a thermodynamic analysis of Al1-xScxN ferroelectrics using Landau-Devonshire theory, providing insights into strain effects on energy barriers and polarization.

Findings

Strain sensitivity of energy barrier is ten times larger than that of spontaneous polarization.

Both energy barrier and polarization are less strain-sensitive than in perovskite ferroelectrics.

Results explain the experimentally observed coercive field sensitivity to strain in Al1-xScxN films.

Abstract

We present a thermodynamic analysis of the recently discovered nitride ferroelectric materials using the classic Landau-Devonshire approach. The electrostrictive and dielectric stiffness coefficients of Al1-xScxN with wurtzite structure (6mm) are determined using a free energy density function assuming a hexagonal parent phase (6/mmm), with the first order phase transition based on the dielectric stiffness relationships. The results of this analysis show that the strain sensitivity of the energy barrier is one order of magnitude larger than that of the spontaneous polarization in these novel wurtzite ferroelectrics, yet both are less sensitive to strain compared to classic perovskite ferroelectrics. These analysis results reported here explain experimentally reported sensitivity of coercive field to elastic strain/stress in Al1-xScxN films, and would enable further thermodynamic analysis via phase field simulation and related methods.