Eur. Phys. J. B 74, 475-477 (2010)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-00119-1

Stochastic ferroelectric switching of lead zirconate titanate thin films

¹ INFM-LICRYL Laboratory-CEMIF.CAL, Ponte P.Bucci, Cubo 33B, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy
² Dipartimento di Fisica, Università della Calabria, Ponte P.Bucci, Cubo 31C, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy
³ CNISM Unità di Cosenza, Ponte P. Bucci 31C, 87036 Rende (CS), Italy

Corresponding author: lepreti@fis.unical.it

Received: 17 June 2009
Revised: 16 March 2010
Published online: 7 April 2010

Abstract

We investigate the repolarization phenomenon in a ferroelectric film. Our ferroelectric sample was lead zirconate titanate (PZT) obtained by sol-gel synthesis and deposited by spin coating on ITO/glass substrate. A series of repolarizations were induced in the ferroelectric film by applying a triangular wave and the current peaks related to the switchings of the ferroelectric domains were acquired for statistical analyses. It is shown that the dynamics and statistics of polarization switchings are well simulated by a simple mean-field model in which a double-well, asymmetric potential is included to describe the asymmetry at the PZT-ITO interface.