An Unusual Mechanism for Negative Differential Resistance in Ferroelectric Nanocapacitors: Polarization Switching-Induced Charge Injection Followed by Charge Trapping

Peilian Li; Zhifeng Huang; Zhen Fan; Hua Fan; Qiuyuan Luo; Chao Chen; Deyang Chen; Min Zeng; Minghui Qin; Zhang Zhang; Xubing Lu; Xingsen Gao; Jun-Ming Liu

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b05634

An Unusual Mechanism for Negative Differential Resistance in Ferroelectric Nanocapacitors: Polarization Switching-Induced Charge Injection Followed by Charge Trapping

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Aug 16;9(32):27120-27126. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b05634. Epub 2017 Aug 2.

Authors

Peilian Li¹, Zhifeng Huang¹, Zhen Fan¹, Hua Fan¹, Qiuyuan Luo¹, Chao Chen¹, Deyang Chen¹, Min Zeng¹, Minghui Qin¹, Zhang Zhang¹, Xubing Lu¹, Xingsen Gao¹, Jun-Ming Liu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Advanced Materials and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Quantum Engineering and Quantum Materials, South China Academy of Advanced Optoelectronics, South China Normal University , Guangzhou 510006, China.
² Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University , Nanjing 210093, China.

PMID: 28741922
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b05634

Abstract

Negative differential resistance (NDR) has been extensively investigated for its wide device applications. However, a major barrier ahead is the low reliability. To address the reliability issues, we consider ferroelectrics and propose an alternative mechanism for realizing the NDR with deterministic current peak positions, in which the NDR results from the polarization switching-induced charge injection and subsequent charge trapping at the metal/ferroelectric interface. In this work, ferroelectric Au/BiFe_0.6Ga_0.4O₃ (BFGO)/Ca_0.96Ce_0.04MnO₃ (CCMO) nanocapacitors are prepared, and their ferroelectricity and NDR behaviors are studied concurrently. It is observed that the NDR current peaks are located at the vicinity of coercive voltages (V_c) of the ferroelectric nanocapacitors, thus evidencing the proposed mechanism. In addition, the NDR effect is reproducible and robust with good endurance and long retention time. This study therefore demonstrates a ferroelectric-based NDR device, which may facilitate the development of highly reliable NDR devices.

Keywords: charge injection; charge trapping; ferroelectric nanocapacitors; negative differential resistance; polarization switching.