Phys.org August 31, 2021
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University used magnesium-substituted zinc oxide thin films to make tiny capacitors. They could set their polarization orientation so that their surface charge is either plus or minus. The setting is nonvolatile. This type of storage requires no additional energy. The magnesium-substituted zinc oxide thin films can be deposited at much lower temperatures than other ferroelectric materials. Substrate temperature can be lowered to ambient conditions, and when doing so, capacitor stacks show only minor sacrifices to crystal orientation and nearly identical remanent polarization values; however, coercive fields drop below 2 MV/cm. This ability could enable a form of digital storage that does not use as much electricity as other forms…read more. TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Part of the process of creating ferroelectric magnesium-substituted zinc oxide thin films includes… Credit: Materials Research Institute, Penn State