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posted by chromas on Wednesday October 24 2018, @01:12AM   Printer-friendly

Nanosized ferroelectrics become a reality

Using ferroelectricity instead of magnetism in computer memory saves energy. If ferroelectric bits were nanosized, this would also save space. But conventional wisdom dictates that ferroelectric properties disappear when the bits are made smaller. Reports that hafnium oxide can be used to make a nanoscale ferroelectric have not yet convinced the field. University of Groningen (UG) physicists have now gathered evidence that could persuade the skeptics. It was published in Nature Materials on 22 October.

[...] 'Reducing the size of ferroelectric materials has been a research topic for more than 20 years', says UG Professor of Functional Nanomaterials, Beatriz Noheda. Some eight years ago, a breakthrough was announced by the Nanoelectronic Materials Laboratory in Dresden, Germany. They claimed that hafnium oxide thin films were ferroelectric when thinner than ten nanometres and that thicker films actually lost their ferroelectric properties. Noheda: 'This went against everything we knew, so most scientists were skeptical, including me.' Some of the skepticism was because the ferroelectric hafnium samples used in these studies were polycrystalline and showed multiple phases, obscuring any clear fundamental understanding of such an unconventional phenomenon.

Noheda and her group decided to investigate. They wanted to study these crystals by growing clean (single-phase) films on a substrate. Using X-ray scattering and high-resolution electron microscopy techniques, they observed that very thin films (under ten nanometres) grow in an entirely unexpected and previously unknown polar structure, which is necessary for ferroelectricity. Combining these observations with meticulous transport measurements, they confirmed that the material was indeed ferroelectric. 'In the substrate that we used, the atoms were a little bit closer than those in hafnium oxide, so the hafnium crystals would be a little strained', Noheda explains.

A rhombohedral ferroelectric phase in epitaxially strained Hf0.5Zr0.5O2 thin films (DOI: 10.1038/s41563-018-0196-0) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by Some call me Tim on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:18AM (2 children)

    by Some call me Tim (5819) on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:18AM (#752745)

    Nah, they started with Wholenium, it works twice as good with Hafnium. Quick! Somebody discover Quarternium!

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:41AM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 24 2018, @02:41AM (#752755) Journal

    How does "drawn and quartered" work for you? All we need is a sketch pad and some charcoal.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 24 2018, @04:01AM (#752780)

      > ...a sketch pad and some charcoal.
      These materials are unknown to this audience...