Ferroelectric domain structures and polarization switching characteristics of polycrystalline BiFeO3 thin films on glass substrates

We investigated ferroelectric characteristics of BiFeO3 (BFO) thin films on SrRuO3 (SRO)/yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ)/glass substrates grown by pulsed laser deposition. YSZ buffer layers were employed to grow highly crystallized BFO thin films as well as SRO bottom electrodes on glass substrates. The BFO thin films exhibited good ferroelectric properties with a remanent polarization of 2P(r) = 59.6 mu C/cm(2) and fast switching behavior within about 125 ns. Piezoelectric force microscopy (PFM) study revealed that the BFO thin films have much smaller mosaic ferroelectric domain patterns than epitaxial BFO thin films on Nb:SrTiO3 substrates. Presumably these small domain widths which originated from smaller domain energy give rise to the faster electrical switching behavior in comparison with the epitaxial BFO thin films on Nb:SrTiO3 substrates. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.