CH022: Behaviour of ferroelectrics influenced by nanoscale morphology

In an attempt to explore fundamental aspects of the behaviour of ferroelectrics at reduced dimensions, a focused ion beam microscope has been used to cut thin sheets, or lamellae, and nanowires directly from single crystal BaTiO₃. Permittivity characteristics and the nature of domain configurations adopted have been investigated. While the permittivity of nanoscale samples appears to remain unaltered from bulk, the domain periodicities and polar orientations observed show a dramatic sensitivity to both size and shape. Indeed, once the physics of the domain response of the nanoscale ferroelectrics is understood, it has been shown that nanoscale morphology alone can be used to control polar orientation along the lengths of single nanowires.