Ferroelectricity and Tetragonality in Ultrathin PbTiO3 Films

Céline Lichtensteiger, Jean-Marc Triscone, Javier Junquera, and Philippe Ghosez
Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 047603 – Published 3 February 2005

Abstract

The evolution of tetragonality with thickness has been probed in epitaxial c-axis oriented PbTiO3 films with thicknesses ranging from 500 down to 24Å. High resolution x ray pointed out a systematic decrease of the c-axis lattice parameter with decreasing film thickness below 200Å. Using a first-principles model Hamiltonian approach, the decrease in tetragonality is related to a reduction of the polarization attributed to the presence of a residual unscreened depolarizing field. It is shown that films below 50Å display a significantly reduced polarization but still remain ferroelectric.

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  • Received 17 December 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.94.047603

©2005 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Céline Lichtensteiger* and Jean-Marc Triscone

  • DPMC, Université de Genève, 24 Quai Ernest-Ansermet, CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland

Javier Junquera and Philippe Ghosez

  • Département de Physique, Université de Liège, B-4000 Sart-Tilman, Belgium

  • *Electronic address: Celine.Lichtensteiger@physics.unige.ch
  • Present address: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019, USA.

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Issue

Vol. 94, Iss. 4 — 4 February 2005

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