Fabrication of isolated ferroelectric nanostructures

Abstract

In this report, we explore the possibilities of the fabrication and characterization of ferroelectric nano-structures by various methods. Techniques include the self-assembly route and direct electron beam lithography. The chemical self-assembly route, which adopted the microemulsionmediated synthesis, appeared to be very encouraging for producing very small monodispersed nano particles and powders, with sizes of 10-60 nm. The possibility to form a two dimensional arrangement of these micro droplets was explored with a suitable choice of the substrate material, and the method of coating. For the patterns prepared by the e-beam technique, a strong coupling between two closely spaced nano elements was observed, the spacing between them was found to be the key factor in tailoring their interaction, i.e., whether they would arrange themselves in rod-like pattern or a two dimensional array of isolated squares or circles.

Influence of the Substrate Surface on the Self-Assembly of Ferroelectric PbTiO3Nanostructures Obtained by Microemulsion Assisted Chemical Solution Deposition

“…The use of microemulsions in the fabrication of nano-size powder particles has been extensively used in many fields including the processing of ferroelectric powders [6] and nanostructured ferroelectric ceramics [7]. However, microemulsion aided methods to produce ferroelectrics onto substrates [8,9,10], mainly thin films, are scarcely found in the literature.…”

SPM studies of ferroelectric nanostructures prepared by a microemulsion-assisted method onto substrates

“…Recently, significant effort has been directed into the development of ultra-high density non-volatile ferroelectric random access memories (NV Fe-RAMs) based on ordered arrays of ferroelectric nanostructures [1][2][3].…”

“…This approach requires the fabrication of an array of ferroelectric nanostructures of equal size and shape onto the substrate. The methods described in the literature to obtain such structures can be divided into the socalled top-down methods (based on etching a thin or ultrathin film) [3] and the bottom-up approaches (based on building up the structures from the bottom) [2].…”

Ferroelectric self-assembled PbTiO3perovskite nanostructures onto (100)SrTiO3substrates from a novel microemulsion aided sol–gel preparation method

“…Only a few works have reported the preparation on substrates of ferroelectric nanocrystalline perovskites from microemulsion mediated synthesis [37][38][39][40][41]. Isolated nanostructures or continuous thin films with an enhanced cpreferred orientation have been obtained, but where, to the best of our knowledge, periodical order has not been observed and besides, the ferroelectric character of the nanostructures has not been demonstrated.…”