Abstract Understanding ferroelectric domain switching dynamics at the nanoscale is a great of importance in the viewpoints of fundamental physics and technological applications. Here, we investigated the intriguing polarity-dependent switching dynamics of ferroelectric domains in epitaxial BiFeO3 (001) capacitors using transient switching current measurement and piezoresponse force microscopy. We observed the distinct behavior of nucleation and domain wall motion depending on the polarity of external electric bias. When applying the negative bias to the top electrode, the sideways domain wall motion initiated by only few nuclei was dominant to polarization switching. However, when applying the positive bias, most of domains started to grow from the pre-existed pinned domains and their growth velocity was much smaller. We suggest that the observed two distinct domain switching behavior is ascribed to the interfacial defect layer.

中文翻译：

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取决于偏置极性的外延 BiFeO3 (001) 电容器中不同的铁电畴切换动力学

摘要 从基础物理学和技术应用的观点来看，了解纳米尺度的铁电畴切换动力学具有重要意义。在这里，我们使用瞬态开关电流测量和压电响应力显微镜研究了外延 BiFeO3 (001) 电容器中铁电畴的有趣的极性相关开关动力学。我们观察到成核和畴壁运动的不同行为取决于外部电偏压的极性。当对顶部电极施加负偏压时，仅由少数原子核引发的侧向畴壁运动对极化转换起主导作用。然而，当应用正偏差时，大多数域开始从预先存在的固定域开始增长，它们的增长速度要小得多。