We explore beyond binary memory capability of ferroelectrics, aiming to render them able to encode multiple bit information, based on operation in a regime spanning several polarization reversal mechanisms. Accessing a Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 ceramic capacitor with combinatorial sequences of pulses whose amplitude, width, and polarity are all allowed to vary during polarization reversal, eight partially switched multiple-level memory states are reproducibly generated. We demonstrate, with aid of applied mathematics, that this operation protocol summons the electric-field-dependent microstructure assembly laws of the material into allowing multiple bit data encoding and storage of up to 64 bits of information in a single ferroelectric capacitor.

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