Relaxor‐based thin film memories and the depolarizing field problem

Abstract A simple model for a thin film memory based on a first neighbor interacting model is studied in detail. We have found that the minimum possible value for the thickness (D) as a function of the lateral size of the memory (L), the screening of the charges at the substrate (S) and the strength of the ferroelectric interaction (J), in order to obtain spontaneous polarization is D = SL /2J. We propose a new mechanism to obtain miniaturization of thin film memories to a single layer based on the use of relaxor ferroelectrics instead of regular ferroelectrics. Under the hypothesis of an internal organization of the random fields inside the nanofilm we show analytically how it should be possible to miniaturize the memory to a width as small as D = 1 for any value of L, J and S. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)