Diode-Like Behavior Based on Conductive Domain Wall in LiNbO Ferroelectric Single-Crystal Thin Film

The ferroelectric diode is a promising candidate for memory, rectifier system, and logic devices. Conductive domain wall (CDW) is essential to ferroelectric diodes. A permanent CDW-based unipolar two-terminal ferroelectric diode-like cell with enhanced conductivity is demonstrated here. Through poling engineering on LiNbO3 ferroelectric single-crystal thin film, diode-like cells with much smaller size than conventional diode is created in significantly efficient way. Throughout 5880 h, the CDW has maintained consistent operation around <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> rather than pA. The ferroelectric diode-like cell is fatigue-resistant for 500 cycles and retains its conductivity for 2400 h. In addition, the conductivity of a diode-like cell has increased from 0.2 to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$16 ~\mu \text{A}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> via charge injection and parallel connection of multiple cells. Finally, the “OR” logic gate is assembled using the cells. These ferroelectric cells can be used as a diode-like component in large-scale integrated circuits and have potential applications in nanoelectronic logic devices.