An Unusual Mechanism for Negative Differential Resistance in Ferroelectric Nanocapacitors: Polarization Switching-Induced Charge Injection Followed by Charge Trapping.

Negative differential resistance (NDR) has been extensively investigated for its wide device applications. However, a major barrier ahead is the low reliability. To address the reliability issues, we consider ferroelectrics and propose an alternative mechanism for realizing the NDR with deterministic current peak positions, in which the NDR results from the polarization switching-induced charge injection and subsequent charge trapping at the metal/ferroelectric interface. In this work, ferroelectric Au/BiFe0.6Ga0.4O3 (BFGO)/Ca0.96Ce0.04MnO3 (CCMO) nanocapacitors are prepared, and their ferroelectricity and NDR behaviors are studied concurrently. It is observed that the NDR current peaks are located at the vicinity of coercive voltages (Vc) of the ferroelectric nanocapacitors, thus evidencing the proposed mechanism. In addition, the NDR effect is reproducible and robust with good endurance and long retention time. This study therefore demonstrates a ferroelectric-based NDR device, which may facilitate the development of highly reliable NDR devices.