Ferroelectricity in thin perovskite films

Abstract

We report on the investigation of ferroelectricity in thin tetragonal single-crystalline perovskite films of Pb(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 grown by off-axis rf magnetron sputtering. The local ferroelectric properties of atomically smooth films, with thicknesses ranging from a few unit cells to 800 Å, were measured using a combination of electric force microscopy and piezoelectric microscopy. The time dependence of the measured signals reveals a stable ferroelectric polarization in films down to thicknesses of 40 Å.