Structural Transformations in Ferroelectrics Discovered by Raman Spectroscopy

Ferroelectrics systems are of great interest from the fundamental as well as applications points, such as ferroelectric random access memories, electro-optic switches and a number of electro-optic devices. Curie temperature (TC) is one of the important parameters of ferroelectrics for high-temperature applications. Particularly, the optical modes, which are associated with the ferroelectric to paraelectric phase transition, are of great interest. Structural transformations that alter the crystal symmetry often have a significant effect on the Raman spectroscopy. This chapter systematically studies the type ferroelectric oxides and rare earth element doped ferroelectric materials such as PbTiO3-Bi(Mg0.5Ti0.5)O3 (PT-BMT), Sr x Ba1−x Nb2O6 (SBN), Pb1−1.5x La x Zr0.42Sn0.4Ti0.18O3 (PLZST), Bi1−xLaxFe1−yTiyO3 (BLFT) and (K0.5Na0.5)NbO3-0.05LiNbO3 (KNN-LN) and so on synthesis of single crystal/ceramic and optical phonon vibration modes and the improvement of the Curie temperature characteristic using spectrometry measurements. The TC, distortion degree, and phase structure of the ferroelectric materials have been investigated by temperature-dependent Raman spectroscopy. Meanwhile, the important physical parameters exhibited a strong dependence on dopants resulting in structural modifications and performance promotion

Probing resistive switching in HfO2/Al2O3 bilayer oxides using in-situ transmission electron microscopy

In this work, we investigate the resistive switching in hafnium dioxide (HfO2) and aluminum oxide (Al2O3) bilayered stacks using in-situ transmission electron microscopy and X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy. Conductance of the HfO2/Al2O3 stack changes gradually upon electrical stressing which is related to the formation of extended nanoscale physical defects at the HfO2/Al2O3 interface and the migration and re-crystallization of Al into the oxide bulk. The results suggest two competing physical mechanisms including the redistribution of oxygen ions and the migration of Al species from the Al electrode during the switching process. While the HfO2/Al2O3 bilayered stack appears to be a good candidate for RRAM technology, the low diffusion barrier of the active Al electrode causes severe Al migration in the bi-layered oxides leading to the device to fail in resetting, and thereby, largely limiting the overall switching performance and material reliability