Ferroelectricity in Orthorhombic Zirconia Thin Films.

Li, Xianglong; Xu, Zengxu; Hu, Songbai; Gu, Mingqiang; Zhu, Yuanmin; Liu, Qi; Yang, Yihao; Ye, Mao et al. · Nano Lett · 2025

basic_science · Level V

Where this comes from

Abstract

Ferroelectric fluorite oxides such as hafnium (HfO<sub>2</sub>)-based materials are one of the most promising candidates for future large-scale integrated circuits (ICs), while zirconia (ZrO<sub>2</sub>)-based fluorite materials, which have the same structure as HfO<sub>2</sub> and <b>more abundant resources and lower cost of raw materials</b>, are usually thought to be anti- or ferroelectric-like. Here, we report a remanent polarization (<i>P</i><sub><i>r</i></sub>) of ∼15 μC/cm<sup>2</sup> in orthorhombic ZrO<sub>2</sub> thin films at 77 K. This ferroelectricity arises from an electric field-induced antiferroelectric to ferroelectric phase transition, which is particularly noticeable at 77 K. Our work reveals the ferroelectricity in ZrO<sub>2</sub> thin films and offers a new pathway to understand the origin of ferroelectricity in fluorite oxides.