Electrically reversible cracks in an intermetallic film controlled by an electric field
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
Authors
Organisational units
External Organisational units
- School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, Univ. Sci. Techn.
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University
- Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California Berkeley
- Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science
- UNSW
- Faculty of Materials Science and Technology, Huazhong Univ. of Science and Technology
Abstract
Cracks in solid-state materials are typically irreversible. Here we report electrically reversible opening and closing of nanoscale cracks in an intermetallic thin film grown on a ferroelectric substrate driven by a small electric field (~0.83 kV/cm). Accordingly, a nonvolatile colossal electroresistance on–off ratio of more than 108 is measured across the cracks in the intermetallic film at room temperature. Cracks are easily formed with low-frequency voltage cycling and remain stable when the device is operated at high frequency, which offers intriguing potential for next-generation high-frequency memory applications. Moreover, endurance testing demonstrates that the opening and closing of such cracks can reach over 107 cycles under 10-μs pulses, without catastrophic failure of the film.
Details
Original language | English |
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Article number | 9 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Nature Communications |
Volume | 41.2018 |
Issue number | 9 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 Jan 2018 |