Conductivity Contrast and Tunneling Charge Transport in the Vortexlike Ferroelectric Domain Patterns of Multiferroic Hexagonal YMnO3
Ruff, E.; Krohns, S.; Lilienblum, M.; Meier, Dennis Gerhard; Fiebig, Manfred; Lunkenheimer, Peter; Loidl, Alois
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Date
2017Metadata
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- Institutt for materialteknologi [2663]
- Publikasjoner fra CRIStin - NTNU [39924]
Original version
10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.036803Abstract
We deduce the intrinsic conductivity properties of the ferroelectric domain walls around the topologically protected domain vortex cores in multiferroic YMnO3. This is achieved by performing a careful equivalent-circuit analysis of dielectric spectra measured in single-crystalline samples with different vortex densities. The conductivity contrast between the bulk domains and the less conducting domain boundaries is revealed to reach up to a factor of 500 at room temperature, depending on the sample preparation. Tunneling of localized defect charge carriers is the dominant charge-transport process in the domain walls that are depleted of mobile charge carriers. This work demonstrates that, via equivalent-circuit analysis, dielectric spectroscopy can provide valuable information on the intrinsic charge-transport properties of ferroelectric domain walls, which is of high relevance for the design of new domain-wall-based microelectronic devices.