title: Polarization switching dynamics governed by the thermodynamic nucleation process in ultrathin ferroelectric films.
abstract: In most ferroelectrics, the domain nucleation barrier (U*) is thermally insurmountable; this is called "Landauer's paradox." However, we showed that, in ultrathin films, the large depolarization fields could lower U* to a level comparable to thermal energy (k(B)T), resulting in power-law decay of polarization. We empirically found a universal relation between the power-law decay exponent and U*/k(B)T. This relation will provide a practical but fundamental limit for capacitor-type ferroelectric devices, analogous to the superparamagnetic limit for magnetic memory devices.
authors.affiliation: FPRD, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-747, Korea.
authors.forename: J Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Jo
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Y S
authors.initials: YS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: S-B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Choe
authors.forename: T K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: J-G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.forename: T W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Noh