Probing fatigue in ferroelectric thin films with subnanometer depth resolution.

The authors report the study of polarization fatigue in Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ (PZT) ferroelectric thin films using in situ high-resolution grazing incidence x-ray specular reflectivity of synchrotron radiation. The results demonstrate that there is no formation of a region of different electron densities in the film growth direction with subnanometer depth resolution during fatigue. The upper bounds on the theoretically predicted interfacial accumulation of oxygen vacancies at the interfaces between PZT and Pt electrodes are determined by the comparison of experimental results and theoretical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]