title: Effect of mechanical loads on stability of nanodomains in ferroelectric ultrathin films: towards flexible erasing of the non-volatile memories.
abstract: Intensive investigations have been drawn on nanoscale ferroelectrics for their prospective applications such as developing memory devices. In contrast with the commonly used electrical means to process (i.e., read, write or erase) the information carried by ferroelectric domains, at present, mechanisms of non-electrical processing ferroelectric domains are relatively lacking. Here we make a systematical investigation on the stability of 180° cylindrical domains in ferroelectric nanofilms subjected to macroscopic mechanical loads, and explore the possibility of mechanical erasing. Effects of domain size, film thickness, temperature and different mechanical loads, including uniform strain, cylindrical bending and wavy bending, have been revealed. It is found that the stability of a cylindrical domain depends on its radius, temperature and film thickness. More importantly, mechanical loads have great controllability on the stability of cylindrical domains, with the critical radius nonlinearly sensitive to both strain and strain gradient. This indicates that erasing cylindrical domain can be achieved by changing the strain state of nanofilm. Based on the calculated phase diagrams, we successfully simulate several mechanical erasing processes on 4 × 4 bits memory devices. Our study sheds light on prospective device applications of ferroelectrics involving mechanical loads, such as flexible memory devices and other micro-electromechanical systems.
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China [2] Micro&Nano Physics and Mechanics Research Laboratory, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
authors.forename: W J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China [2] Micro&Nano Physics and Mechanics Research Laboratory, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
authors.forename: Yue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China [2] Micro&Nano Physics and Mechanics Research Laboratory, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
authors.forename: W M
authors.initials: WM
authors.lastname: Xiong
authors.affiliation: AML, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
authors.forename: Biao
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: 1] State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China [2] Micro&Nano Physics and Mechanics Research Laboratory, School of Physics and Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang