Conductivity Contrast and Tunneling Charge Transport in the Vortexlike Ferroelectric Domain Patterns of Multiferroic Hexagonal YMnO_{3}

Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Jan 20;118(3):036803. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.036803. Epub 2017 Jan 20.

Abstract

We deduce the intrinsic conductivity properties of the ferroelectric domain walls around the topologically protected domain vortex cores in multiferroic YMnO_{3}. This is achieved by performing a careful equivalent-circuit analysis of dielectric spectra measured in single-crystalline samples with different vortex densities. The conductivity contrast between the bulk domains and the less conducting domain boundaries is revealed to reach up to a factor of 500 at room temperature, depending on the sample preparation. Tunneling of localized defect charge carriers is the dominant charge-transport process in the domain walls that are depleted of mobile charge carriers. This work demonstrates that, via equivalent-circuit analysis, dielectric spectroscopy can provide valuable information on the intrinsic charge-transport properties of ferroelectric domain walls, which is of high relevance for the design of new domain-wall-based microelectronic devices.