A ferroelectric oxide made directly on silicon.
Metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors, formed using silicon dioxide and silicon, have undergone four decades of staggering technological advancement. With fundamental limits to this technology close at hand, alternatives to silicon dioxide are being pursued to enable new functionality and device architectures. We achieved ferroelectric functionality in intimate contact with silicon by growing coherently strained strontium titanate (SrTiO3) films via oxide molecular beam epitaxy in direct contact with silicon, with no interfacial silicon dioxide. We observed ferroelectricity in these ultrathin SrTiO3 layers by means of piezoresponse force microscopy. Stable ferroelectric nanodomains created in SrTiO3 were observed at temperatures as high as 400 kelvin.
Warusawithana
Maitri P
MP
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Cen
Cheng
C
Sleasman
Charles R
CR
Woicik
Joseph C
JC
Li
Yulan
Y
Kourkoutis
Lena Fitting
LF
Klug
Jeffrey A
JA
Li
Hao
H
Ryan
Philip
P
Wang
Li-Peng
LP
Bedzyk
Michael
M
Muller
David A
DA
Chen
Long-Qing
LQ
Levy
Jeremy
J
Schlom
Darrell G
DG