Evolution of weak ferroelectricity dielectric response in PbZrO3 antiferroelectric thin films

In this study, the ferroelectric domain wall contributions to the permittivity is investigated in a PbZrO3 antiferroelectric thin film far from its antiferroelectric-ferroelectric field transition E-AF (E <= 150 kV/cm). The lattice contribution to the permittivity increases as function of polarization electric field E-DC but also presents two additional small peaks. The increase is due to the antiparallel dipoles reoriented along the electric field direction (antiferroelectric contribution) and the two peaks correspond to a ferroelectric butterfly loop. The two phenomena are added to the permittivity, which make it difficult to decorrelate them. The vibration and pinning/unpinning contributions of the domain walls present only a ferroelectric butterfly loops but they do not tend to zero at infinite fields, which suggests that the ferroelectricity does not disappear completely. Dielectric losses decrease as a function of the polarization (Lorentzian function) due to a reduction of the ferroelectric domain walls density.

Automated summary

This study investigates the contribution of ferroelectric domain walls to the permittivity in a PbZrO3 antiferroelectric thin film. The lattice contribution to the permittivity increases with the polarization electric field, and two additional small peaks are observed. The vibration and pinning/unpinning contributions of the domain walls exhibit only ferroelectric butterfly loops, indicating that ferroelectricity does not completely disappear.