title: Domain wall conductivity in semiconducting hexagonal ferroelectric TbMnO3 thin films.
abstract: Although enhanced conductivity of ferroelectric domain boundaries has been found in BiFeO3 and Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 films as well as hexagonal rare-earth manganite single crystals, the mechanism of the domain wall conductivity is still under debate. Using conductive atomic force microscopy, we observe enhanced conductance at the electrically-neutral domain walls in semiconducting hexagonal ferroelectric TbMnO3 thin films where the structure and polarization direction are strongly constrained along the c-axis. This result indicates that domain wall conductivity in ferroelectric rare-earth manganites is not limited to charged domain walls. We show that the observed conductivity in the TbMnO3 films is governed by a single conduction mechanism, namely, the back-to-back Schottky diodes tuned by the segregation of defects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA. Center for Correlated Electron Systems, Institute for Basic Science, Seoul 151-742, Korea. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea.
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: J G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Connell
authors.forename: S S A
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Seo
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gruverman