Orthorhombic‐like atomic arrangement in hafnium‐oxide‐based nanoparticles
Konomi Fujimoto, Yukio Sato, Yoshifumi Fuchikami, Ryo Teranishi, Kenji Kaneko
Abstract
Abstract Size effect on ferroelectricity in nanoparticles (NPs) has been an important issue for decades. For NPs with a perovskite‐type crystal structure, which are the most popular ferroelectrics, ferroelectricity is believed to disappear for sizes below a critical value. However, newly discovered hafnium‐oxide‐based systems exhibit stronger ferroelectricity for thinner films that may be advantageous to produce smaller ferroelectric NPs, and the ferroelectricity is believed to originate from a polar orthorhombic phase. In the present study, zirconium‐doped hafnium oxide NPs with diameters of ∼3−4 nm were synthesized and then were clarified to be of a metastable phase with an orthorhombic‐like local atomic arrangement. This study implies that ferroelectricity may possibly be obtained in hafnium‐oxide‐based NPs.